


Ling and the Demon and Roommate Agreement

by waywardwondersmith



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: #I said no graphic depictions of violence but there might be a little later on, #idk how tags work help, #not even as bad as the actual show's violence but there will be blood, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Demonic Possession, Demons, Friendship/Love, Multi, Roommates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-03
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-05-30 22:18:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6444088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waywardwondersmith/pseuds/waywardwondersmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Considering the general creepiness of the building, Ling wasn't even all that surprised to find a monster dwelling in his new apartment. After that, it was just a matter of getting along with his new demon roommate and trying not to get killed by the supernatural forces that had just entered his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Apartment is a Horror Film Set

**Author's Note:**

> This is an AU fic based off of an idea by newkingdoms on tumblr. I'll put a link to the original drawings at the bottom, but they do contain some spoilers for where I want the story of this fic to go, so if you found this fic without seeing the drawings, you may wanna proceed with caution.

The old house may have been creepy, but Ling had already known that when he’d decided to move in. The landlady, on the other hand, had turned out to be downright _terrifying_.

“…Well, that should be about it, Ling, I’m sure— oh! The tenants in C are getting some pipes fixed tomorrow, so the water’s going to be off at about ten. Sorry, bad timing,” Ms. Curtis said, listing off on her fingers. She was all friendly and welcoming _now_ , but she’d been in the middle of an argument on the phone when Ling had walked in that morning, and it had taught him a new kind of fear. Edward hadn’t been kidding when he’d said to be polite to her, though as he took another look around the room, Ling was wondering if Ed had actually known what he was getting Ling into when he’d referred him to this place.

“Sounds good to me. I mean it is a weekend, you really think I’ll be up by ten?” he tried to joke. She wasn’t laughing. He cleared his throat under her stare and stood up a little straighter.

“So yeah, pipes? Will that fix the smell?” he asked. “

Huh?”

“Will that fix that bad smell?” he repeated, louder.

“Don’t shout, I heard you just fine. I just have no idea what you’re talking about, there’s no smell to fix.”

“Oh come on, there’s rotten eggs or something! Can’t you… um… smell it?” he trailed off as she frowned in blank confusion. She took a sniff but still looked doubtful.

“I guess? That’s strange, I didn’t notice it before,” she said. He couldn’t tell if she was humouring him or not, but either way it was worrying. The scent was strong enough that Ling had noticed it the second he’d walked into the apartment, and it had only gotten worse since the last time he’d been there for the tour, so why was he the only one to notice at all? If he was losing his mind and hallucinating the smell then at least he could blame it on the stress of moving, but he still hoped that that wasn’t the case.

“It’s probably nothing, just the neighbours’ garbage or something,” he said quickly, waving his hand. Ms. Curtis stared for another moment and shrugged.

“Alright, that’s it then. You sure you don’t want any help unpacking?” she asked.

“Thanks, but I’m fine. There’s really not much to unpack anyway. I’m a broke college student, remember?” She chuckled and clapped him on the back, and her hands were warm. First —or in this case, second— impressions notwithstanding, Ms. Curtis was probably the best thing about the place.

“I’ll be on my way then. Sig and I are just downstairs, so holler if you need anything.”

“Sure thing Ms. Curtis.”

“I told you, call me Izumi!” She shut the door hard enough behind her that Ling could see a cloud of dust puff off of the door frame. Now that she was gone and her friendly smiles with her, the house was already starting to press down on him again, and having a visual reminder of how long it had been since anyone had lived in this apartment wasn’t helping. And that wasn’t even to mention the stairs (ominous and creaky), the air conditioning (useless and even creakier), or even the wallpaper in the hall (hideous and covered in suspicious stains). Izumi had told him about the renovations the place had undergone when he’d first met her, but most of those changes had been safety things like replacing appliances. He appreciated not being poisoned by lead faucets, but he also would’ve appreciated some attention to the interior design while they were at it.

But the rent was cheap, and he’d already made his decision.

He groaned and slouched into the nearest chair. The fact that the place came more or less furnished was also meant to be a plus, but being closer to the floor also made the smell worse. Rotten eggs— what did that mean, sulphur? That could not be healthy.

 _Stop complaining so much, your first apartment’s_ supposed _to be terrible_ , he reminded himself. There was water and heat and that was what mattered. It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t have any better options if he wanted to live off-campus by himself and still get to class on time. It also definitely wasn’t his fault that Ed had bailed on sharing somewhere better with him.

Heck, wasn’t even really Ed’s fault either considering that the choice had been between Ling and Winry. Ed should’ve moved in with her ages ago.

He stared blankly at the spiderweb in the corner and didn’t get up. Sure the furniture smelled, but it was also very comfortable and soft and he was already worn out before he’d even started unpacking. The thought of moving and putting actual effort into dealing with those boxes was a little bit horrifying. Izumi had probably only offered to help out of politeness, but his irrepressible lazy side was wishing he’d actually said yes. If nothing else, having her there to yell at him would scare him into getting up.

“ _uuuuggghhh_.”

This was going to be a very long night.

* * *

 

He eventually hauled himself up after about two long minutes and a monumental amount of effort, but it took even more effort later that night not to crash in the same chair, or just on the floor for that matter. After losing track of the time and staying up much later than he should have, he sat down on his bed for just a second to take a breather and check his phone. He immediately fell asleep right there, still in his jeans. It was a miracle even he’d stayed up long enough to get sheets on the bed.

It was right around then that things really started to go wrong. His unsettling dreams may have been a side effect of letting the shadows play tricks on his eyes, of letting them send him to sleep with an anxious chill and a feeling of being watched, but he couldn’t say for sure when his dreams had crossed the line from the usual weirdness into something more disturbing.

It was hard to say anything at all about this place. The choking storm of black that surrounded him had left him feeling like he was no longer breathing.

Ling could barely feel his own body, or anything around him. The maelstrom was dark and insubstantial like smoke but it flowed like a liquid and Ling could see red and black and nothing else, blurring and swirling around him in every direction into oblivion. When he realized he was sitting on thin air, his heart jumped into his throat as he leapt to his feet much too quickly, stumbling now on thin air with a million miles of nothing beneath him.

Then something laughed at him.

The sound bounced around like it was coming from everywhere at once. Ling whipped his head around to try and find the source, but it only made him look stupid; the laughter just got louder, more derisive. He covered his ears but it seemed to echo and rattle around both the space and the inside of his head as if they were one and the same. He was immersed in this idiotic cackling, and it was starting to get annoying.

“Alright, enough! If you’re going to laugh at me then do it to my face! Stop hiding!” he shouted. The laughter stopped abruptly with a nervous choking sound and Ling was left again with the feeling that he was being watched from the shadows. He looked up and space seemed to bend around him as he found himself an inch away from a face that looked just as shocked as he felt. It was too close to see anything clearly but its eyes were blank and white and

— _scared_?—

Ling opened his eyes to a dizzying headache and a mouth so dry that his tongue felt like dirty sandpaper. The sun was peeking around the edges of his curtains and the low light was almost blinding.

What the hell had just happened?

He fumbled for his phone on the floor for a full minute before picking it up and blinding himself again with the screen. Quarter past ten, which somehow felt both way too early and way later than it actually was. He had a stack of texts and emails, most of which seemed to be either school spam or family check-ins, but he started with Lan Fan instead.

_—You all unpacked? How’s the house?_

He glanced around the room. How _was_ the house? It was probably responsible for… whatever the hell that had been, but the dream was already fading away now that he was awake, so it could be forgiven. Probably.

_—Unpacked last night. Curtis turned out to be a lot scarier than when we met her before, but I still think she’s kinda nice?? idk the house is still scary too but it’s fine, I’ll keep you posted_

He clicked send and put the phone back down, still uneasy. Everything he’d just said was true, and no one liked listening to someone ramble about their dreams anyway, but he still felt like he was lying to her. Or maybe to himself. The place was fine, and he’d stand by that statement regardless of whether that was true, but Ling didn’t feel fine. He got to his feet too quickly and he felt dizzy again. Maybe he’d slept for too long. He stumbled to the bathroom to try and splash some cold water on his face, but nothing came out of the tap.

* * *

 

“I still thing you’re worrying too much, you got a good deal. And Izumi’s actually really nice. Unless you piss her off, I guess,” Edward said through a mouthful of sandwich. After the emotional and financial devastation they’d just experienced while textbook shopping, the two of them had been in desperate need of a really good pick-me-up, but Ling had settled for crappy cafeteria pasta.

“No kidding. She was shouting on the phone when I walked in and sounded ready to kill the guy on the other end of the line, but then she gave me a tour and offered to help me with something every five minutes,” he said. Ed swallowed hard and cringed.

“Yeesh. That’s Izumi for ya. Don’t go picking any fights with her.”

“Ha! That’s really something coming from you, Ed.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he shouted. Ling raised an eyebrow and Ed slouched back again, embarrassed.

“Yeah, yeah, I see your point. But seriously, I’ve seen Izumi’s apartment plenty of times, how scary can yours be?”

“Depends. Have you ever visited Izumi after dark?” he asked. Ling felt a rush of smug satisfaction as Ed blanched.

“Okay, that _would_ be pretty creepy,” he admitted. “But aren’t you a little old to be scared of the dark? And if you’re so scared of living by yourself, why didn’t you move in with Lan Fan?”

Ling sighed and put his head on the table. This again. It was like talking to a wall.

“Ed, I’ve told you at _least_ a dozen times that she’s still living with her grandfather this year,” he said into the table. He didn’t know why he was bothering with this again. Forget the dumb house— Ed had all the subtlety of a sledgehammer and it meant he still couldn’t get why Ling and Lan Fan weren’t moving in together any time soon. They weren’t like Ed and Winry, and Ling didn’t want to raise the issue at all. Rooming with Ed again like last year in the dorms wouldn’t have been a stretch, even considering their own weird history, but there were connotations attached to moving in with a girl that would’ve turned his need for basic housing into a complicated mess if he’d tried to bring up the idea with Lan Fan.

“Besides,” he added aloud. “Lan Fan came with me to check the place out before I settled on it and she told me I was out of my mind. It creeped her out even more than me, but she’s not the one who had to worry about location and rent so I had to take it anyway.”

“Seriously? But the house isn’t that bad! And it takes a _lot_ to scare her!”

“Yeah, well, I guess that house is a _lot_ scarier than you give it credit for. And it really wasn’t about how it looks creepy, though it sure doesn’t help. It just gave her a bad vibe, I think, she said she felt like she was being watched. And that’s really the whole problem, I feel like I’m being watched too. Must be because of the way the walls cast shadows, or something like that. The stairs creak and I think someones in my room, y’know?”

“I guess?” Ed tried. Ling resisted the urge to smack his forehead.

“You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?” he said flatly. Ed shook his head.

“Nope. Again, we’re a little old to be afraid of the dark,” he boasted. Ling sighed and resisted the urge to smack Ed instead of himself.

“Y’know, _you’re_ the one who referred me to this stupid house in the first place, so you’re kind of the one who got me into this mess,” he said. “And yes, I know  _I’m_ the one who moved in despite the warning signs, but you can come over any time to see how much it feels like a horror set after the sun starts to go down. Heck, if you’re not busy tonight you can probably even visit Izumi after you’ve apologized to me,” he said. Ed momentarily looked delighted at the challenge, but his face fell and he put his head in his hands with a groan.

“I can’t go today. I’m getting my leg repaired, I forgot.”

“Gee, contain your enthusiasm to get your limb put back into one piece,” Ling said sarcastically. Ed looked up from his hands with murder in his eyes and Ling bit back a snicker.

“I’d like to see _you_ spend an hour getting your limbs jerked around by a cranky physiotherapist and keep that stupid grin on your face. Besides, this is like the third time this year, and she told me last time that if it happened again she’d—“

“I have no sympathy for you, Ed. Every one of those was your fault and you know it,” Ling interrupted. Ed stared slack-jawed for a moment trying to think of a retort but he couldn’t think of one and settled for an indignant scoff.

“Well… yeah. True. But that’s not the point! It’s a pain in the ass to go all the way to the office over a little cracked plastic! I could fix it myself, Winry _wants_ to fix it herself, and half the time I do! But _noooo_ , just _one_ doctor catches wind that I fell out of a tree and suddenly it’s a ‘ _medical liability_ ’ because we’re not ‘ _trained or licensed_ ’ and we could ‘ _hurt ourselves_ ’. Like that isn’t already the problem! It’s _my_ leg…”

Edward carried on in this vein for a few minutes, and Ling did his best to listen. He was glad that Ed had stopped talking about the house, but Ling couldn’t get off that train of thought. Ed could roll his eyes all he wanted, and Ling wasn’t sure he disagreed. Architecture aside, the house couldn’t hurt him. Everyone got jitters in the dark, so it’d just be silly to take his fears so seriously. Last night’s dream, however, was still putting a twist in his stomach. He couldn’t remember anything concrete, which was almost worse because it meant he didn’t know what it was that had freaked him out so much. For all his rambling, he’d made a point not to complain about the dream to Ed, which was probably for the best considering his dismissive reaction to everything else. Ling couldn’t remember the last time he’d had such vivid dream of any kind, let alone a real teeth-chattering nightmare like that, so it struck him as a bit of a bad omen that this had happened the very first time he’d slept in the apartment.

“… and of course Al just thinks its the funniest thing, the little jerk…”

* * *

 

Even after Edward had ended his tirade about his leg, the two of them ended up dragging their conversation on for so long that they lost track of the time and had to sprint to get Ed to the bus on time for his appointment. The incident cleared Ling’s mind of any other worries except for chasing that bus, and it had left Ed in such a snit that Ling had struggled not to laugh at him again. That good mood carried him through the rest of the afternoon and into the evening as he made his way to the grocery store and then home again.

Living in a dorm last year with a mini fridge and a kettle had taught him a harsh lesson about college budgets for cooking, but for now, he deserved some real food. The apartment didn’t have a dishwasher, but the stove worked like it was brand-new, and he was just happy to have a kitchen this time. The sulphur smell was even gone; it had cleared out of the room on its own, and now it’d been replaced by the scent of garlic and chicken broth.

“ _… and the hip bone’s connected to the leg bone and a da-de-da-da_ ,” he sang in a mumbling undertone as he poured soup into a bowl. Talking to Ed had gotten Ling thinking about legs, and earworms got worse without anyone around to talk to.

“ _And the hip bone’s connected to the leg bone, but_ not _if you’re Ed_ — ah!”

He cursed as he danced a little too carelessly and slammed his real hip bone into the open drawer’s corner. Most of his soup went slopping down his shirt, burning even more painfully than his hip, and the jolt made him reflexively throw his spoon into a corner somewhere.

Perhaps it was just because he’d done something very stupid, but he was worrying about being watched again.

He pulled his shirt off and put it in the sink before looking for the spoon. There was a gap of about two inches between the countertop and the refrigerator, and a skid trail of chicken broth across the counter said that the spoon had fallen in the crack.

Still cursing, he got down on his knees and squinted into the darkness. Whose idea was this design anyway? It was practically begging for problems like this.

The spoon was there, and already covered in more dust and grime than he ever wanted to touch, but something more interesting was also back there. It was dim, but the wall behind the fridge seemed to have…

What was that spray paint? That didn’t look right. He didn’t even think they made brown spray paint.

He groaned and picked out the spoon. Some handyman had probably marked up the wall and left it like that, and that meant there was probably some kind of renovation that hadn’t gotten done. He was at his limit with the house, and if the walls were full of mould or asbestos or something ridiculous like that, he was packing his bags, no more questions.

Then again, it was odd to have something like that where it was. He was on the second floor, so it wasn’t like there was any flood damage to cause mould. And if they’d cleared out all the old wires and pipes in the first renovation, it wasn’t like they were just going to ignore the walls, right?

Yeah, false self-reassurance clearly wasn’t doing it tonight. If he was paranoid, he was paranoid.

He pulled his phone out and tried to shine the flashlight on the wall, craning his neck to see down the gap. The streak of brown looked less like spray paint now and more like a smear of something thick, and he could see at least three lines of it, maybe arcing into a circle, definitely meeting into a corner. He instinctively tried to pull the fridge sideways, then laughed at the ridiculousness of the whole situation. Two crazy nights out of two so far, what a great start.

He sat himself back up and ran his fingers through his hair, which only got dust in his bangs. He could probably get Izumi to help him, or maybe her huge husband Sig who he’d run into coming up the stairs, but even if they did want to help him move the fridge and destroy his kitchen, what then? The smear was still almost definitely nothing nothing. Just a bit of mud, something a handyman couldn’t be bothered to wash. Going to Izumi for this was probably going to make him look like a suspicious weirdo at best, and piss her off at worst. Not the best way to endear himself to her.

He stood up and got a headrush. He’d broken out in a clammy sweat. The house was getting to him again and it was making him worry about things that weren't important.

Enough.

He shook his head, and the dust out of his hair, and pulled his shirt out of the sink. Trying not to think about anything at all, but especially not about the wall, he put the shirt in the hamper, pulled on another and a hoodie for good measure, and walked back to clean up the mess. Looking dead ahead, he wiped down the counter, poured himself a new bowl of soup, and turned off the stove.

He sat down with his dinner. He immediately stood back up again.

“Dammit,” he muttered, kneeling back down at the fridge. What was he doing? It was just some paint or something! But there he was, cursing himself up and down for being so curious, but squinting at the crack all the same. It was just plain suspicious looking. It looked like the corner of a design, definitely not an accident. He was allowed to be curious, wasn’t he?

“Dammit.” He pulled out his phone and wedged his arm into the crack with the flashlight on again. Now that it was closer, the flat light made the smear look rusty and his stomach turned again. No way. That was too fucking weird, the house was creepy but there was _no fucking way_ that that was—

He pushed the thought away.

His arm barely fit into the gap as it was, but he wrenched it around to reach further and flicked his phone to camera. If he could just get it _behind_ the fridge with the flash on, then _maybe_ —

_smack!_

“Agh! _Dammit_!” The damp, freshly-washed floor made his foot slip out from under him when he strained too far forward. His head slammed against the edge of the cupboard and he dropped his phone behind the refrigerator. Head spinning, he pulled his arm out and pinched his nose to make sure it wasn’t bleeding.

Then he heard something laugh at him once again, a mocking snicker sounding loud and clear across the room.

“Who— who’s there?” he said. His voice was so hoarse that the words barely came out at all. This could not be happening. He had not just heard that. He was seeing red and black again because that laugh was back and this could not be real.

The room seemed very big and very dark now as he stood up on numb, bloodless legs.

“Come on, who’s there?” he asked, pleaded. His voice cracked but he inched forward. His heart was pounding so hard that it hurt to breathe, but he was holding his breath anyway. The laughter had already stopped, but the room was not quiet. The white noise of the fridge and the buzzing lights and the muffled neighbours going about their lives below and beside him seemed deafening as he strained to hear anything else. He stood there, every muscle tense, for so long that it started to hurt. So long that he started telling himself that it was nothing.

But he’d heard it. If he was imagining things then so be it, but _he’d heard it_.

A shadow crossed the lights and the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Something was behind—

“Hello?”

Ling screeched wordlessly and turned around so fast that he lost his balance and hit the linoleum hard enough to rattle his brain in his skull again. Looming over him was a shapeless mass of black, billowing over the lights and pooling into itself at the front to make a crude face, all teeth and eyes. Just like last time, it looked just as shocked as Ling was.

It was back. It was _real_.

And it wasn’t exactly doing much. It hovered there without speaking for so long that Ling could take a deep breath and sit up to get a better look at it. Horrifying as this… _thing_ was, it hadn’t tried to hurt him yet. In fact, with the way its smoke moved, it almost seemed to be fidgeting like an awkward kid, waiting to see who’d be brave enough to talk first.

“So, uh… you really could hear me earlier, huh? You could tell I was here?” it finally said. It? Or was it a he? The voice was definitely masculine, and it seemed incongruously normal. If it weren’t for the fact that it sounded like it was talking through a mic filter, Ling could’ve mistaken it for an ordinary man’s voice.

Ling’s own vocal chords still weren’t working, so after several strangled gasps, he gave up and nodded. The thing’s eyes widened and he started laughing again, this time sounding more astounded than anything else.

“Well, then. This is about the last thing I expected,” he said, shuffling his form like a shrug. “No avoiding you now, I guess. Anyway, you can call me Greed. I think I’ve got a little explaining to do.”


	2. The Roommate and the Agreement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a little longer than I meant it to, but oh well, I got it finished now!

In the time it took Ling to regain his words and try to answer this thing that called itself Greed, someone arrived to interrupt him.

— _knock, knock_ —

“Ling? I heard a scream coming up the stairs, you alright in there?” came a voice from the door. Sig. Ling looked between Greed and the door and back at Greed again and saw the creature opening his mouth like he wanted to say something but keeping silent as he stared at the doorway where Sig was listening on the other side. His blank gaze shifted to Ling, even as he shrank backwards away from the wall. Was this nightmare thing actually worried?

“I’m… fine?” Ling croaked. Greed gave a quiet sigh of relief and sank to the floor.

“Something happen?”

“Ye— no! No, it’s fine. I saw a spider. A big one. I hate spiders. I’m sorry,” he babbled. Even Greed looked exasperated at how stupid he sounded, which was impressive considering that his face was basically an evil-looking hockey mask.

“Alright. Sorry to bother you. G'night.”

“Good night, sir,” Ling said stiffly. He heard Sig’s heavy footfalls back down the stairs and he let out a sigh of his own before sitting up to look Greed in the eye, suddenly furious. 

“Okay, _damn right_ you’ve got some explaining to do! Who— _what_ the hell are you and why are you in my apartment!” he hissed. 

“I am a demon and I live here. Next?” Greed responded, casual as you please.

“A _de_ — oh God. _Oh_ my God.” Ling hauled himself up off the floor and started pacing, ignoring Greed’s confused stare. 

“Kid?”

“A demon! In my house!” Ling blurted. 

“Yes.”

“Why is there a demon in my house!”

“I _live here_ , you little shit, I just told you!”

“ _Why_ do you live here? What are you doing in— in my _dream_! That was you!” Ling shouted. Greed cringed and drew backwards again. 

“Yeeeaaaah, my bad. That was an accident though.”

“An accident! You were _inside my head_. That’s so creepy! And you are _so_ lucky I fell asleep in my clothes, this could’ve been so much worse,” Ling said, face burning as he instinctively shrank into his hoodie. The notion that that dream really had been something inhuman was nauseating to think about. 

“What a lovely mental image,” Greed muttered. “I say again, kid, yes I was in your head, but no, I _did not_ enter your dreams on purpose. I have better things to do.”

“Then why were you there at all?”

“ _Accidentally_. Jeez, you’re dense.”

“And you’re useless! I’m gonna need a little more than than ‘accidentally!’” Ling said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. He almost could’ve laughed if he didn’t also feel like he was on the verge of either crying, screaming again, or spontaneously combusting. Of all the things a demon could be, ‘frustrating’ was not what Ling had expected, and it was making him a little hysterical. 

“Okay then, I’ll explain it nice and slow. Human minds are pretty open when they’re asleep, and very easy to accidentally cause nightmares in like that. Having dreamscapes overlap is easier than you’d think. Your mind was wandering, my mind was wandering, oops, they ran into each other. And that’s all besides the point because it won’t happen again, alright? There was absolutely no ill intent on my part, at all,” Greed said. Ling scoffed out a humourless laugh. 

“Right. All good intentions. Forgive me if I don’t quite believe that yet! Especially considering how hard you were laughing at me last— just now, actually! I’m sure I look real damn funny tripping around,” he said. Even as he spoke, he realized he had a headache, which could’ve been from either the shock or because he’d just smashed his head against a corner. 

“Of course you looked funny, you fell over. But that does remind me why I was watching in the first place. You know the thing behind the fridge? Don’t touch it,” Greed warned. 

“Why?” Ling asked, heart skipping a beat. Greed’s smoke wavered as if he were trying to put up placating hands. 

“Easy does it, kid. It’s just a blood seal. You have a human body, so it’s not going to have any effect on you.”

“Oh God, it _was_ blood,” Ling said. Demons, black magic— this was just getting better and better. 

“You make that sound so awful. Yes, it’s blood, but it’s not gonna _hurt_ you,” Greed scoffed. 

“Then why the big scary warning, huh? What’ll happen if I touch it?”

“Let’s just say that it won’t be a fun time for _me_ and leave it at that. Unlike you, I don’t have the luxury of a meatsuit, and while we’re on the subject, there’s also a ward behind the radiator that keeps other spirits away, and I don’t want you messing with that one either, got it?”

  
“Sure?” Ling said. It seemed to him that that was more of a _change_ of subject than an on-topic addition, but it also sounded vaguely like a threat, so Ling wasn’t going to push the issue when he had too many other questions anyway.  
“Good. You’re handling this pretty well, by the way, I think most humans would’ve rather let Sig come in and try to beat me up. Or just gone straight to the nearest priest,” Greed said. Ling couldn’t quite laugh at the joke as he sat back down in a chair. The shock was receding, but his legs were still shaking and he couldn’t make them stop.

  
“I’m still considering that, there’s a church down the street. And a psychologist’s office,” he said. He tried one more time to breathe and calm down before lapsing into hiccuping nervous giggles that weren't quite tears. There was no way this was really happening, right? He’d already hit his head a couple times, so now that he’d calmed down enough to think, this had to be another nightmare like last night. There was no way he was really chatting up a demon, right?

He took a heaving breath to stop giggling and put his head in his hands, pressing on his eyes until he saw painful spots. It sure felt real.

“How did this happen?” he muttered. 

“Hey, don’t ask me. I’m just as surprised as you are.”

“What do you mean?” said Ling, looking up.

“Well you know you’re kind of weird, right? This isn’t normal?”

“How so?” 

“Yikes, I was never good at explaining this stuff. Alright, you know how in horror movies there’s the dumb white kids who blunder into supernatural stuff without noticing the signs at all, and sometimes there’s a smart guy who can tell something’s wrong?” Greed asked. 

“Yeah?” Ling had a sinking feeling about where this was going.

“You’re the smart guy. Usually it’s hard for humans to make contact with the supernatural unless at least one side is _really_ trying to catch the other’s attention, but you could smell brimstone the minute you walked into the building— hell, you actually hear me whenever I laughed at you! It probably doesn’t seem like much, but that’s pretty impressive for an otherwise normal human.”

“Thanks, I guess? So what then, are you saying I’m _psychic_?”

“Not really. More of a medium, I guess?” Greed said. Ling immediately thought of the lady on TLC and tried not to cringe too much. 

“You guess? What’s the difference?” he asked. 

“Uh….”

“Shouldn’t you know this?” 

“Shut up, I already told you it’s hard to explain. Anyway, psychic kind of means you’ve got superpowers, but all you can really do is talk to me a little easier. Unless you can read minds or something I don’t know about?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then you’re a medium. Probably not a very strong one either since you didn’t find out until now, most of the more talented ones figure it out when they’re kids.”

“Oh. Good. Great. Just great,” Ling said, throwing his hands up. As if this evening wasn’t weird enough, now he had the Shining too. Or _didn’t_ , considering the superpower thing. He wasn’t sure which was worse.

Ling was willing to admit, though, that of all the things that had happened so far, this one was the least surprising. Not only did it explain how he’d gotten into this mess in the first place, he could think of a few other things that made sense in retrospect thanks to this revelation. Greed had been closer to the mark than he’d realized when he’d mentioned dumb white kids stumbling into danger; from the day he’d met him, Ling had been astounded by Edward’s sheer _lack_ of ability to pick up on bad vibes. Before this, he’d blamed it on Ed being a stubborn blockhead who simply ignored that feeling Ling had thought they were both getting —a theory supported by Ed’s usual tactlessness in the face of a _social_ bad atmosphere too— but maybe Ling had been a bit unfair. Doing things like poking around in the spooky part of the woods at night was still a terrible idea, but maybe he couldn’t fault Ed so much for not realizing just _how_ terrible it was when Ed was apparently the normal one here. 

Still, the apartment had turned out to be haunted for real, and Edward Elric owed him an apology. 

“It’s probably better this way,” Ling eventually said. “Talking to you has been kind of terrifying, I’m not gonna lie, but I’d rather know you were here than have you lurking around without me realizing.”

“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” Greed said dully. Ling looked up at him grinned sheepishly. 

“Sorry. I just like knowing what I’m getting myself into. Can’t blame me for that, can you?”

“I guess not. You know I’m here now though, so what are you planning on doing? I won’t blame you if you pack your bags.” 

“Are you kidding me? It was hard enough finding _this_ apartment! I’m not repeating _that_ process over something as dumb as this,” Ling said, jumping up. So there was a demon in his apartment. So what? Ling had seen plenty of weirdness in his life. This was just a new kind of weird that he could learn to deal with, and if he was as special as Greed said, he would’ve found out sooner or later anyway. Unless things went really south and Ling got attacked by a monster or possessed or something else ridiculous like that, he was pretty sure that his _school_ could dish out bigger problems than the supernatural could.

“Okay? Again, you’re handling this _remarkably_ calmly. I don’t think most people would’ve called this a dumb thing to move out over,” Greed said. 

“Well, you’re the one who said I’m weird! You certainly don’t seem like you’re leaving any time soon, and I don’t think I _can_ leave because university is a thing that exists, so you and I are just going to have to get along with each other,” Ling decided. His legs had mostly stopped shaking, so he walked straight past Greed to the kitchen drawers. 

“What are you doing?”

“You and I are going to make a roommate agreement,” he said, scrabbling through the drawers for some paper. 

“We _what_?”

“ _Room-mate a-gree-ment_ ,” he repeated. “I’m not going to go through what happened last night again, so we need to set some ground rules.”

He held up a notepad and pen triumphantly, but Greed was making faces that hovered somewhere between dismay and disgust. 

“What’s with _that_ look? You act like you’ve never made a roommate agreement before,” Ling said, sitting back down. 

“Of course I haven’t, when would I have needed to do something like that?”

“Then this’ll be a learning experience for you. Come on, get over here.”

Greed sighed and floated to hover over the table. 

“I’m not saying we don’t need to set some boundaries, because we probably do, but don’t you think this is a little overkill? It’s not like I can give a signature or anything,” Greed complained. His smoke faltered a little as if to emphasize that he did not, in fact have hands that could not sign legal documents. 

“Don’t be so dramatic, it’s just easier to remember this way. I learned the hard way living with a roommate last year that it’s better to have actual rules. Sooner or later, someone’s going to piss the other person off, and when that happens, it helps to have it in writing.”

“That sounds like a story I’m glad I wasn’t a part of.”

“You should _absolutely_ be glad you weren’t a part of that, but that’s behind us now and I’ve grown as a person for it,” Ling said. He was only half-joking. Greed grimaced even more than his skull-like face had been doing already. 

“Why did I agree to this?” he muttered.

“You don’t get a choice in this one, buddy! You aren’t the one paying rent,” Ling said, pointing at Greed with his pen.

“Of course I don’t pay rent, dumbass, I’m a disembodied spirit! I just haunt the building!”

“Excuses, excuses. You’re a freeloader is what you are. What else could I expect from someone literally named _Greed_?” Ling said dramatically. 

“Hey, you don’t hear me insulting your name!”

“Do you even know my name?”

“Irrelevant.”

“No it’s not. What kind of a name is Greed anyway? Is that actually your name?”

“Of course it is! Greed the Avaricious!”

“That’s… not better. ‘Avaricious’ just means ‘greedy’ doesn’t it? It’s redundant,” Ling said. Greed grumbled unintelligibly at the question and his smoke buzzed in irritation. Fiend of hell or not, he was pretty fun to wind up. 

“Okay, yes. It’s redundant. I knew that already. Moving on?” he finally said. 

“Sure, but do you or do you not actually know my name?” Ling asked. 

“No, I do not know your name yet. I didn’t catch it when Izumi was talking to you because, shockingly enough, I have good enough manners that I know not to eavesdrop. Happy?” Greed grumbled. 

“Very. Pleased to meet you, Greed the Avaricious, my name is Ling Yao,” he said brightly, thrusting out a hand to shake out of pure habit. Greed eyed it with a mixture of suspicion and exasperation and Ling put his hand back down with an awkward cough. 

“Right. So, to business?”

“About time.”

“Shush. Okay, rule number one, you can’t come into my bedroom unless I invite you in to chat or something. I don’t want to repeat last night.”

“Sounds fair. Like I said, I don’t really want to poke around in your subconscious either, or your messy room for that matter.”

“Who says I have a messy room?” Ling asked, though the accusation would probably be justified after a few weeks of actually living in the room. Ling cleared his throat again as Greed stared expectantly and he wrote down his Rule Number One. 

“Okay, rule two, _no more sulphur_. You can’t complain about the state of my room when you’re being disgusting like that.”

“Come on, that’s not how it works. _I_ don’t smell,” Greed complained. 

“Then why’d the apartment smell, huh?” Ling asked, pointing the pen again. If Greed had had a chest he would’ve poked it, but instead his hand fell through the smoke, going pins-and-needles-numb as it passed through before he caught himself and whipped his hand back. They both recoiled and Ling felt a cold rush of fear as Greed glared at him, his form whirring like a brewing storm. 

“Sorry,” he stammered, heart pounding. He half-expected Greed to lash out. Instead, the demon just sighed and slowed himself down. 

“Forget it. It’s a common mistake, you’ll get used to this sooner or later.”

“Did that hurt? I mean I basically just stabbed you there, are you alright?” Ling asked. Greed stopped dead, then ground his teeth at the question. 

“If talking to a pissant like you hasn’t gotten me yet, a little poke isn’t going to do me any damage,” he snarked. Ling bit his tongue and tried not to snap. This was hard for him too, dammit!

“Well alrighty then, smart guy, I ask again! Why did the apartment smell if it wasn’t your fault?”

“Technically that was ‘my fault,’ but that’s your special brain being weird again. Without a body, I literally can’t smell like anything.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Seriously?”

“Greed, I’ve got _no idea_ what you’re talking about, and it mostly just feels like you’re trying to avoid the question. I’m new to all this, cut me some slack!”

“Cut _me_ some slack, kid, you’re the medium here! I’m just the supernatural thing who’s just as confused as you are. All I know is that sensing stuff doesn’t always happen with the same sense, does that make sense?”

“You said the word ‘sense’ too many times in that sentence.”

“Sometimes bad energy just gives a vague bad feeling, and sometimes it leaves you hearing things or smelling brimstone coming from nowhere or something else concrete like that. It’s like how some people smell something burning before they have a seizure.”

“Is that even a thing?”

“I think so? I don’t know, there was this one guy I met back in the day— you know what, never mind, you’re missing the point,” Greed said, quitting while he was ahead. “You should just be grateful, kid, you’re about as normal as mediums can get and you’re one of the ones who just _smelled_ something wrong when you stumbled on a haunting unprepared. I knew a woman who got migraines when she went anywhere with too many spirits.”

“Lucky me,” Ling said sarcastically. 

“Pick a different rule. You already know I’m here, it’s not gonna happen anymore.”

“You sure?

“Don’t give me that tone, you little brat, of course I’m sure! There’s no point in an alarm system if I’m already in your house, is there?”

“No.”

“Exactly. The smell’s probably stopped now anyway, so stop whining already,” Greed said. Ling bit his tongue again, unable to argue. 

“Fine. Rule two, no scary demon weirdness _in general,_  especially if I’m having friends over. I don’t know what that means, considering you’re not like the horror movies, but if my friends walk into something that they think looks like a horror movie, I’m the one who’s going to look weird,” Ling said, already writing it down. He could hear Greed tutting in irritation but he ignored it. Keeping this secret from Ed or Al, or any of his family for that matter wouldn’t be hard, but Lan Fan was going to be a whole other story. She hadn’t even wanted to try the house, so however sensitive Ling was to have gotten this far, she had to be so much more so. He didn’t need this idiot demon making his life even harder by making the lights flicker. 

“Sure, whatever you say. But if that’s going to be a rule, you have to warn me ahead of time if someone’s coming over so I can hide. I don’t know which of your friends are sensitive and I don’t want to find out,” Greed advised.

“Good plan. I’d ask you to return the favour, but you must not get many guests what with that anti-spirit ward or whatever you called it,” Ling said sarcastically. 

“Got me there. My social circle’s gone a little stale lately, I don’t get out much,” Greed chuckled. Ling stopped writing and chewed his pen, the joke losing its humour. How long had Greed been alone here anyway?

“What are you staring at? Still getting used to me?” Greed asked. Ling snapped back to attention and forced a smirk. 

“I’m working on it. I think anyone would have a little trouble getting used to speaking to a disembodied face,” he retorted. 

“Yeah, yeah, real cute. Can we make rule four about insults? I don’t think you know who it is you’re disrespecting, to be honest.”

“A hockey mask?” Ling guessed. Greed did not answer, though Ling suspected he would’ve if he could have come up with a good comeback.

“I’m not going to make any rule about insults, but that does remind me of an actual rule that might be a good idea. Pranks of any kind are officially off the table. That just gets out of hand _way_ too fast,” Ling said. Greed raised an eyebrow, kind of, and sighed. 

“Again, that sounds like a story I’m _real_ glad I wasn’t around for. Who exactly were you living with last year?” he asked apprehensively.

“Ed. It’s a long story. Lucky for you, he’s about as sensitive to spirits as a brick wall, so you two are probably never gonna meet,” Ling laughed. Greed considered the answer and his eyes widened. 

“This Ed wouldn’t happen to be the short noisy Ed who visits Izumi sometimes? With his brother and sometimes a blond chick?” he asked. 

“Right, I forgot you would’ve seen him if you live here! Also yes, but he’s not so short anymore, he’d probably kick your ass if you said that to his face,” Ling said, wondering again when Greed had last left the apartment. 

“Well, you’re not wrong, he is _definitely_ not sensitive,” Greed snickered. 

“Now, now, I’m the only one who’s allowed to tease Ed like that,” Ling said. He chewed on his pen again as he regarded Greed. 

“I guess regular rules don’t really apply to you, do they? No rent from you, and I can’t imagine you’ve got much cleaning to do either. I’m guessing you don’t eat?” he asked. 

“Nope. Might as well cross quiet hours off the list too, I don’t have parties or a sleep schedule for you to worry about.”

“You can’t sleep?” Ling asked, shuddering at the thought. 

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, I can still sort of zone out and doze if I want to. But really, what good would actual sleep do me? Once again, no body, nothing to rest.”

“Well, I’ll envy you when exams come around and I have to study, but until then… yeah…” Ling trailed off, stifling a yawn. Where was he going with this? Maybe it was all this talk of sleeping but all of a sudden he felt ready to drop. The adrenaline was gone and he was dead-on-his-feet exhausted, even if his mind was still wide awake. 

He sighed and put his head down on the table. 

“I think I need some time to think this thing over. We can finish this thing tomorrow.”

“It’s like 8pm, are you seriously tired already?”

“Yes,” he mumbled. “I didn’t sleep so well last night, remember?”

“Oh. Again, my bad.”

“Mm.”

“Well, I’m not complaining if we’re done with this thing, but don’t fall asleep at the table like that, the kitchen’s still a mess,” Greed said, gesturing at the pot that was still on the stove and the stone-cold bowl of soup that Ling had forgotten on the table. 

“We’ve been real roommates for what, twenty minutes, and you’re nagging me already?” Ling said in disbelief. 

“Look, I’m no neat freak, I’m not going to complain if you’ve got some clutter, but come on, food? That’s gonna be gross if you leave it overnight and you know it.”

“Ugh. But I’m so comfy,” Ling complained, pulling his hood over his head. 

“Go clean up your mess, you little brat!”

“Can you do it?”

“Of course not! I literally can’t _and_ I refuse either way!” Greed snapped. Ling smiled in spite of himself at Greed’s sheer indignation and sat up with a groan. He pulled the bowl over and grimaced at the hardening film of oil at the top. 

“Eugh. As if my appetite wasn’t _already_ ruined by tonight,” he muttered. He’d probably regret not eating within a few hours or so, but for now he felt a bit too sick for that. He almost got up then and almost started cleaning, but the piercing shrill of Apple’s most obnoxious iPhone ringtone interrupted his thoughts and froze him in his tracks. 

“What the— is that yours?” Greed asked, looking around. Ling couldn’t quite answer and burst out laughing. His phone was ringing, and that particular spacey ringing meant it was his mother calling, from probably the least convenient spot in the apartment. 

“I dropped it behind the fridge,” he choked out through his giggles.

“You _what_?”

“I dropped my phone behind the fridge when I hit my head and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to reach it,” Ling said, already getting up to try and get his phone. 

“Are you kidding me? No, no, get back, I’ll get it, you’re going to make it worse,” Greed muttered. He cut in front of Ling and squeezed behind the fridge before Ling could even try to reach for it and after a moment of awkward silence, the phone skittered out along the floor and collided with Ling's foot. 

“That’s the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever heard,” Greed said, squeezing back out. It was so bizarre to look at that Ling kept a frozen stare for another moment before the phone rang again and yanked him back to reality. 

“Hi mom!” he said loudly, turning his mild hysteria into cheerfulness. 

“Hi Ling, just wanted to call to make sure you’re settling in,” she said. It didn’t sound like she’d noticed that he was on the verge of cracking up, though Greed was still staring in the least helpful way possible. Ling tried to shoo him away with his free hand. 

“Things are going pretty good, I’m all unpacked. I went textbook shopping with Ed today,” he said. 

“And you found everything okay?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so. I mean it’s not cheap, but I got it.”

“And you went food shopping? Did you remember to get the concentrated dish soap I told you about? You’re going to go through it a lot faster since you don’t have a dishwasher like at home.”

“I got it,” he said. Jeez, was everyone on his case about the dishes tonight?

“Good to heard it. I’m glad you’re doing so well, I was worried when you couldn’t find a roommate, but if you’re good, then you’re good, I guess,” she said. She was the picture of motherly concern, asking exactly what a mom should, and Ling had to fight back the urge to laugh his ass off in the face of her kind words because he was still holding eye contact with Greed as she said them. No roommate indeed. 

“I’m good, mom. I can take care of myself, don’t worry about me.”

“Alright, I’m sure you’ve got it. I’ll— oh, someone’s calling me on the other line, I’ll let you go. I love you, Ling.”

“Love you too, mom,” he said, blushing furiously as Greed started grinning. She hung up and the demon completely gave up trying to be polite and started snickering. 

“What are you looking at huh?” Ling shouted. 

“That was _adorable_.”

“You’re just jealous.” Ling put the phone down and leaned against the countertop. Hearing his mother’s voice had simultaneously brought him back down a little and fired him up again. If anything else, hearing someone from the real world where demons weren’t breathing down people’s necks had made it clear that he wasn’t sleeping any time soon. Forget about whether he was tired or not, he had too much to think about to bother trying to sleep any time soon. 

“Well, this has been fun,” he said. 

“It was sure something to watch. That ringtone might've been the worst thing I've ever heard."

"I know, and my mom thinks so too, but my sister thought it was pretty funny so I kept it."

"Your poor mother. Now will you do your dishes already?”

“I’m getting to it! You really are a nag,” Ling complained, walking back over to get his bowl. Greed watched him the entire time as he put everything away and started rinsing out the pot. 

“So what were you going to do tonight if all this hadn’t happened, just hide in the vents or something?” he eventually asked.

“What makes you think I hide in the vents? It’s my apartment, I don’t need to hide,” Greed said dismissively. 

“It’s _our_ apartment, and the air conditioning doesn’t work very well, so I thought that might be your fault.”

“It’s not, the whole system’s been junk since the reno. Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know. I just think I might be a little too wired to be able to get to sleep any time soon, so if you’re not doing anything either anyway, you wanna watch a movie or something?” Ling asked. Greed blinked in owlish confusion.

“Really? I thought you would’ve had enough of me by now, I did kinda ruin your night.”

“You did. Completely. But hey, we're roommates now, so we might as well at least try to hang out. And neither of us have anything better to do, so why the hell not?” Ling said, gesturing with a dishrag in hand and flicking soap around the kitchen. Greed flinched away from the flying water and laughed. 

“Why the hell not indeed, huh? Any movie in particular?”

“I'm not picky. I mean, would you be mad if I asked you to watch a horror movie with me?” Ling asked. Greed stared blankly at him for so long that Ling worried he had gotten him angry, but then he said, "Didn't expect _that_ from you, but 'course not. Why would I be mad?”

“I don’t know, horror movies usually make demons out to be total dicks! _I’d_ be offended,” Ling said. He almost added ‘and _you’re_ not a total dick,’ to that statement, but he figured he’d take a little more time to decide that about Greed. 

“I see where you’re going, but nah. They’re not always wrong, and when they _are_ wrong it’s hilarious, so I kinda like them.” 

“Oh,” Ling said in a small voice. The thought that horror movies _weren’t_ automatically something to be dismissed was worrying, but Ling looked back down at his dishes and tried not to think about it. 

“Anyway, if you were so concerned about my feelings, why ask in the first place?” Greed asked. Ling laughed sheepishly and pulled the drain plug. 

“Ah, it’s kinda dumb, but I figure if I watch like, _The Exorcist_ or whatever with a _friendly_ demon with me, I won’t be so scared this time, y’know?” 

“‘This time?’ Is this another Ed story?” Greed asked. 

“If we're talking specifically _The Exorcist,_ then surprisingly enough, no. Ed actually hates that movie. Never figured out why, he loves horror, but this one’s actually a Lan Fan story. Me and my best friend tried to watch it without permission when we were nine. She sat through the whole thing with a straight face and I left the room and cried, and she still holds it over my head when she needs to embarrass me.”

“Ha! Thats priceless. But then you want to watch it again after that? Humans are so weird. When I'm watching horror I usually think it's funny, but then you guys are all ‘hey, I’m so bored on a Sunday night with no plans. Hey, I know! I’m gonna give myself nightmares,’” Greed mimicked. 

“I don’t sound like that!”

“I’m just saying, it’s—”

“Have _you_ seen it?” Ling interrupted. 

“Well… yeah. A few times actually,” Greed admitted.

"More than once? Then you _definitely_ can't make fun of me for watching it," Ling said. He put the last of the dishes down on a towel without bother to put them all the way away and went to get his laptop. 

“It’s worth mentioning that I saw it _when it came out_ and there was nothing better playing! And also that it's probably still going to scare the crap out of you and if you have nightmares you can't blame me this time,” Greed called after him. 

“I'll take that as a chall— wait a minute, this movie’s from the seventies! How old are you?” he asked, sitting down. 

“Two hundred years, ish. I’m not good with dates, but once you get past a century or so you kind of stop counting anyway.”

“Huh.” Ling probably should’ve realized that a demon would be so old, though two hundred years almost seemed _young_ for an immortal thing now that he thought of it, but it was still bizarre to consider that this snarky puff of industrial smog was older than Ling would ever be. 

He pulled up Netflix on his laptop and searched up _The Exorcist_. The poster still gave him the creeps, though he remembered that last time he hadn’t even gotten far enough in the movie to see the girl get as messed up as she was in the picture. 

“Last chance to bail if you don’t wanna watch it,” Ling said, finger hovering over the play button.

“What, you scared?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he said, pressing play. “That’s why I’m watching it with _you_ , ya jackass.”

“Thanks? I’m still not sure I see your logic here, but I’m game to watch you scare yourself,” Greed said, settling down on the back of the couch next to Ling’s shoulder. 

“Again, I take that as a challenge, Greed! Now be quiet and watch the movie,” Ling said, and he turned his attention to the screen before Greed could make him lose his nerve. He was probably going to regret his cockiness later on when the movie started getting terrifying, but he didn’t care. The demon in the film was just as fictional as the human characters, and real demon beside him, who hadn't hurt him yet and who hopefully could be trusted never to try, was the only one that mattered. Ling wasn't quite relaxing about all this yet, but he had stopped shaking by now. Heck, after the initial shock, a part of Ling was just glad to be alive. Not only alive, he realized, but more than a little grateful he didn’t have to live in such a grim place all by himself. The apartment had seemed haunted from the beginning anyway, so at least now he knew it was by something he could come to an agreement with.


	3. The Army Jacket and the Girl

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY THE HELL CHAPTER IS FINISHED  
> no seriously this took me way too long, I rewrote it five times and it's still kinda weird but whatever, it is DONE and it is FINE.

So Ling’s day already wasn’t going all that well when he ran headlong into the surly blond guy in a knockoff army-style jacket who was rounding the corner, but it’s not like it _helped_ matters.

“Watch where you’re going, jackass!” the stranger shouted. His voice was a snarling rasp of indignation that sounded _way_ too similar the demon from _The Exorcist_ ’s for Ling’s comfort, especially since he’d started the morning by waking up from a nightmare about the movie. In retrospect, having a movie dream five full days after watching the movie should’ve been a sign that things might be a bit off today, but it hadn’t really occurred to Ling until now that he’d knocked himself silly.

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, picking himself up and brushing off the half-dozen sheets of paper that had fallen on him. Army Jacket probably had every right to be pissed off since Ling had made him drop a mile-high stack of paper on the floor, but considering he was still standing while Ling had hit the ground so hard that the lights seemed to be flickering, it seemed a little excessive. He wasn’t even that much bigger than Ling; it was just unfair.

“What’s your damn hurry anyway?”

“I’m running late, okay? It’s not my— wait that’s mine, you don’t want my coffee receipt,” Ling said. Army Jacket handed the scrap of paper back so stiffly that Ling could hear his elbow crack, and wasn’t subtle about shuddering when their fingers accidentally brushed against each other. Honestly. He should’ve just been glad that Ling had already finished the coffee so it couldn’t spill too.

“Do you need help with that? I feel kinda bad,” Ling said, eyeing the mess of papers. They seemed to be a strange mixture of legal forms and notes from about six different academic faculties and Ling really didn’t want to know, especially when Army Jacket gave him the evil eye and bent back down to pick the rest of them up.

“Cut the crap, kid, you said you were running late. Just get going and _watch it_ this time,” he grumbled. Ling didn’t need to be told twice. He took off running again, this time with his eyes up. At the same time, he could feel Army Jacket’s eyes on him until he rounded the corner, glaring a hole in him. What a jerk. It was an early morning for everyone, there was no need to be like that!

Ling stifled a yawn and slowed to a walk. He was already late; there wasn’t much point exhausting himself when he was already struggling to stay awake. He might have made a mistake signing up for this class, but all he had to get through was the day and then he’d be home free. After all, he only had six and a half hours, three classes, a grocery shop, and a meeting with a professor to go before Lan Fan was coming over to see him, so it was only up from here, right?

* * *

 

So Ling’s day wasn’t going well at all when he loudly made his way into the classroom late and fell asleep a soon as the professor had finished the housekeeping and started lecturing, but it _definitely_ didn’t help matters.

“Ling? Ling Yao, wake up,” came a voice. Ling blearily opened his eyes to a find the professor standing over him and a crick in his neck.

“Whatzat?”

“You fell asleep, Ling.”

“Huh. So I did. Hey, I didn’t know you knew my name already,” Ling mumbled.

“Your name tag for orientation is still stuck to your backpack,” the professor said coldly.

“Oh. Really?” Ling fumbled for the bag with fingers that had also fallen asleep, while the professor ignored him and said, “there’s another class in here. You need to leave.”

He seemed a little disgusted that Ling had been sleeping so deeply that he hadn’t woken up on his own with the noise of the class starting to leave, but he also might’ve been making a face because the beanie Ling had put on instead of showering had fallen to the floor while he was asleep.

“I got it,” Ling muttered. He struggled to pick everything up with his numb fingers and the professor sighed in obvious disappointment.

“Look, this isn’t high school, or even your first year, so I’m not going to scold you or anything silly like that, but _since_ this isn’t—“

“I should know better, I know. I can promise it won’t happen again, and I understand if you have to dock effort marks or something. I just had a bit of a rough night,” Ling said dully. Sheesh. What he really should’ve known better than to do was let this conversation go on so long when he didn't care.

The professor barked out a laugh that didn’t help Ling’s discomfort.

“Well, I guess that’s understandable with the first week. Lemme guess, roommate troubles?” he asked. Ling bit his tongue so he wouldn’t laugh.

“Funny enough, no,” he said. “See you on Tuesday.”

“See you Tuesday,” the professor echoed. He only sounded _mildly_ confused, so Ling felt it was fine to leave the room as fast as possible without giving any more explanation. Roommate troubles indeed. Ling had gotten used to having that stupid demon in his life faster than he’d gotten used to waking up early again. There was probably something _profoundly_ wrong with that, but again, he’d woken up early; he was too tired to care about nonsense like that.

He yawned so hard that his jaw cracked and thought wistfully of his bed, something that would’ve been perfectly pleasant if it hadn’t also made him think of the morning he’d had. Ling _may_ have gotten used to living with Greed, but until this morning, there hadn’t been much to get used _to_. Turned out, unless Ling was pestering him with questions or roommate agreements, Greed didn’t tend to _do_ anything most of the time except start the odd conversation.

This morning, however, he had started a conversation by demanding to know ‘what the hell is wrong with you Ling? It’s seven in the morning, dumbass.’

A real sweetheart, he was. They’d had a good-old-fashioned argument between roommates after that, or _would’ve_ if Ling had been awake and coherent. In Greed’s defence, the two of them had made three more rules since Sunday night, one of which had been a request from Ling for quiet early in the morning. Demons didn’t sleep either way, so Greed hadn’t cared at the time, but he had _not_ been pleased when the kid who had been harping at him about a roommate agreement had been the first one to violate it by causing a ruckus at seven in the morning.

Of course, in _Ling’s_ defence, he didn’t give a fuck.

The hallway he was walking down led straight outside, but before he could get that far, Ling walked past the little coffeeshop and his stomach growled. Waiting in line here trying to get coffee was half the reason why he’d been late for the class in the first place, and he hadn’t even been getting anything that took time to make, just some terrible espresso from the self-serve line. It was _definitely_ a bad idea to get caught in that line again, even if he was hungry.

He ducked out of the hallway traffic and into the line for the till, which stretched all the way to the doorway. Breakfast had been a matter of sprinting out the door with a granola bar in his mouth, looking and feeling like an idiot, and Ling felt he deserved something unhealthy and filling now for his trouble. At the very least, a second jolt of caffeine might keep him awake through his next class.

The line shuffled forward at a snail’s pace and Ling was jostled between two freshmen toting enormous bags. Ling had never seen the room when it _wasn’t_ full to the point of being a fire hazard, but today was especially bad. It was so busy that it took Ling a moment to realize who the line had left him standing next to.

Ling genuinely tried keep his mouth shut and mind his own business, but Army Jacket was having none of it; he stiffened like he’d been shocked and turned around just in time to catch Ling staring at him.

“What the— are you _following_ me?” he demanded. Were they really having this conversation?

“Of course not. I haven’t even left the building,” Ling said. Army Jacket scoffed in disbelief and now Ling was angry too.

“Hey, what’s your deal, buddy? I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” he asked. Wrong move. Army Jacket went red in the face and straight onto the defensive.

"Who the hell do you think you're talking to like that, huh kid?"

"Oh come on, what'd I do? You started it!” Ling complained. Who did he think he was? Calling him 'kid' on top of everything else— there was no way he was more than two years older than Ling. Hell, with a voice like that he might even be younger, though it was hard to tell when he shouted.

"You showed up like you're following me!"

"It's public property ya shifty fuck, why are you freaking out about _seeing_ me so much? You hiding something?" Ling shouted, and immediately regretted it when he realized just how many stares they'd attracted. Army Jacket went white in what Ling could only assume was more rage, though it might've been panic too with all the eyes he had on him now.

"What did you just call me, kid?" he asked. Ling's blood went cold at the sudden gentleness of his tone and in spite of his more rational instinct, which knew a fistfight was unlikely, the thought occurred that this guy _might_ be a little sturdier than he looked. He was already the taller one. Ling's own martial arts training notwithstanding, he did _not_ want to fight him, now out of a fear that he'd lose as well as the normal desire not to start a fistfight in a crowded public place.

Ling didn't _think_ Army Jacket was going to hit him, but he wasn't thinking much of anything either way with that stare on him. He was standing way too close, and as if it weren't hard enough to keep contact with those wide, wild eyes, Ling could smell the eggs he'd had for breakfast on his breath strong enough to gag. It took long enough for Ling to come up with an answer that someone got involved.

"Uh... s'there a problem?" one of the baristas mumbled. What little blood there was left in Army Jacket's face drained out while Ling could feel himself going red.

"No, there's not," Army Jacket said in a stilted fake-polite tone. He took a huge step backwards to get away from Ling but only walked into someone even smaller, a terrified-looking freshman who was, unfortunately for everyone, standing with her hulk of a friend.

"What do you think you’re doing?" she demanded. Only now that he was faced with something actually worth looking scared of did Army Jacket regain his composure, eyes narrowing and expression hardening. Ling could _assume_ that Army Jacket was going to say something aggressive and weird again, but he didn’t hear it because took this new confrontation as his cue to bail before this could all be pinned on him. He quietly ducked out from the crowd with a muttered excuse on his lips and squeezed behind someone taller before anyone could notice and make the situation uglier, home free before a fistfight could break out.

* * *

 

So Ling’s day had been going rather disastrously when Lan Fan called him four hours later, but by then he’d already had two more Army Jacket-esque weirdo encounters with a professor and the Jehovah’s Witness by the fountain, so he knew not to expect anything good. In any case, the fact that she was calling instead of sending a text put a knot in his stomach.

“Hey, Lan Fan? What’s up?” he asked apprehensively.

“Hey, Ling. I’m really sorry, but I have to bail on tonight, I had to drive my grandfather to the hospital and this might take a while,” she said breathlessly. That explained the call. Ling may not have expected anything good to come out of today, but he hadn’t expected anything this bad either. “

That’s terrible! What happened?” She made a disgusted noise that came through the phone as a rush of static. Wherever she was —waiting room? Emergency room?— was crowded, noisy, and had terrible reception. “Nothing too serious, thank God. Some poor dumb kid in his advanced group kicked him the wrong way and it looks like he broke his pinkie blocking the blow so she didn’t break his _face_.”

“Ouch. You’re right though, that’s not too bad.”

“Yup. He’ll be back on the floor by tomorrow if they let him,” she said, and Ling’s heart sank. Even with the static, even with the rest of the room trying their best to talk over her, the frustration in her voice was sounding out loud and clear. Fu was pretty spry as grandparents went, but she and Ling both knew that he was getting a little old to be spending all day teaching ten-year-olds how to beat him up.

"Well, the doctors probably aren't going to do that, so you make sure he listens and takes it easy. If you don't, I will," he tried to joke. She laughed even though it fell flat, another rush of static.

"I think I can handle him."

"Good. And this is probably better to be honest, I'm kind of exhausted. You wouldn't believe the day... I've... uh..." he trailed off as the hairs stood up on the back of his neck and the sickening, but familiar, sense of being watched washed over him. He looked over his right shoulder and saw a face he had not wanted to see again.

"Ling? You still there?"

"Wh- yeah. Hang on, I gotta stop you there for a second. Call me back when you hear from the doctor okay?" he said, hanging up without waiting for an answer. Army Jacket had come around the corner where Ling had stopped and he'd frozen as soon as Ling had seen him.

They both stared. They both struggled to speak. They both marvelled at the absurdity of the situation, or at least, Ling _hoped_ that Army Jacket would do that instead of assuming it wasn't a coincidence again and reacting like last time.

In the end, the tension broke when Ling said something very, very stupid.

"I'm still not following you." Ling could almost hear the fuses blowing inside Army Jacket's head at the comment and without thinking, he turned on his heels and started walking away as fast as he could.

"Hey kid, wait a minute!"

"Nope. No. Not having this conversation again.”

"Wait _up_ ," he insisted, putting a hand on Ling's shoulder that was clammy enough that he instantly stopped walking just so he could get it off.

“Seriously? What the hell is _with_ you? I may not have been following you, but that doesn't mean you can go following _me_ ," Ling said irritatedly. The blond made another weird face in response, emotions indeterminable.

“I’m _not_ following you,” he growled.

“Then what do you _want_ , buddy?”

“What did you call me earlier?”

“ _Huh_?”

“When you were yelling at me in the coffee shop, what did you call me?” he repeated. He was standing uncomfortably close to Ling again, eyes still intense and breath still terrible.

“What, you expect me to remember? Why the hell does it matter?” Ling asked. Army Jacket held his stare with a clenched jaw, but stepped away suddenly like something had snapped.

“Alright,” was all he said, and immediately began walking the way he had been going before he saw Ling. Ling was too perplexed to even try to stop him until it was too late.

“Hey wait a minute, that’s it? What the hell, man, aren’t you gonna yell at me or something?” he called after him. Either the guy was weird enough that he was deliberately ignoring Ling now too, or he was half-deaf on top of everything else, because he didn’t take the slightest notice of Ling's shouting, but instead just speed-walked his merry oblivious way around the corner of the nearest building and disappeared. Ling stood paralyzed for a moment by the internal debate of whether to let it go, or be an idiot and try to catch up, but for a lack of anything intelligent to do about a situation this strange, he decided to catch up.

“What the hell,” he muttered. All that for nothing? Maybe Ling was _looking_ for trouble at this point, but he deserved a little more explanation than _that_. Anyone could agree that that had been weird, even by Ling's new standards of the word, and he wanted an answer.

It was clear as soon as he turned the corner, however, that he was wasting his time; Army Jacket was long gone, having walked too far away or gone inside or just evaporated into thin air. Given's Ling's luck the latter was probably the answer. Wouldn't it be _just perfect_ if he'd angered a ghost or a lost spirit or something who could just nope out of their conversation and leave him hanging?

* * *

 

So Ling's day had gone rather disastrously by the time it finally ended, but then he had to come home to an apartment that was _not_ , unfortunately, empty.

"Greed, you can come out! Lan Fan cancelled, you don't need to hide!" he called when he was sure the door was firmly closed. Izumi may not have been a medium, but if she heard him talking to someone who wasn't there, it might raise some eyebrows.

Greed appeared from who-knew-where as Ling shrugged off his heavy grocery bags and started putting them away, and he already had questions.

"Where's your girl?"

"I _just_ said she couldn't come. And don't call her 'my girl.'"

"Okay, smart guy, _to rephrase_ : where is the female human you said you were bringing and _why_ couldn't she come over? _Furthermore_ , what’s with this mood you’re in?” Greed enunciated. Ling irritatedly blew his hair out of his eye at the question. He still needed to wash it, just like he needed to find something to do with himself tonight.

Maybe he'd just sleep instead.

"Her grandad broke his pinkie, she needed to drive him to get it checked out. I mean, I guess that's not so bad, and I’m glad it wasn’t worse, but I mostly pissed off because this whole day was bad enough that I feel like I've pissed karma off or something."

"Oh, here we go. What did you do?"

"Me? _I_ haven't done anything, it's everyone else who's gone nuts! Clearly it's not enough that I have to live with you—“

“—hey!"

“—which is weird enough, but I have to attract all the crazy _people_ on campus too!"

“Uh-huh. So was it the vegans or the Christians who were protesting on campus today?” Greed said sarcastically.

“No one was protesting, don’t be like that. I _did,_ however, manage to get on the bad side of the angriest guy I think I've ever met, and _then_ I ran into him two more times after that, and he completely flipped out on me! Like, dude, I bumped into you in the hall, I'm sorry, but don't get all weird on me!"

"How weird is weird, like _me_ weird?"

"Don't flatter yourself, this guy was way scarier than you," Ling snorted. He ignored Greed's disbelieving scoff and added, "Anyway, he got all jumpy and kept freaking out that I was following him, and then I think I said something that really offended him but I don't remember what it was or why it made him so mad. The weirdest thing was at the end of the day though, he came up to me and asked what I had said and then he just ran off and disappeared. I probably just lost track of him, but I felt really iffy after that like I was being watched or something."

"What, again? Is your _school_ haunted too?"

"Don't joke about that. The guy creeped me out enough that I thought of that already, but that is _not_ a train of thought that I would like to get on."

“I'm just saying, the school's old enough—"

" _Do not_ ," Ling said forcefully. He kicked the fridge door shut to emphasize his point and sat down on the floor against it with the pretzels he'd bought in hand.

"Dude, you have a chair right there," Greed said, halfway between exasperation and amusement.

“I am well aware of that, but you, creature without a body, cannot appreciate the simple pleasure of sitting on the floor _because_ the chair's right there and I pity thee," Ling said with his mouth full of pretzels.

"Charming. So what, he actually vanished? Did you see it?” Greed asked. Ling dry-swallowed and sighed.

"No, I didn't see it, I just lost track of the guy. You’d _know_ if I'd seen it because I'd be yelling about it. Now can we drop it? I feel paranoid enough as it is, and he wasn't even the only weird guy I met so he's really not worth it."

"Yeah, you said that. Just what kind of trouble do you get in when I'm not around?" Ling only laughed in response and out of sheer habit, reached to offer Greed some pretzels.

"I'm good," he said sarcastically, and Ling shrank back, embarrassed. "Seriously, kid, what could top the _first_ weirdo? Did you get mugged or something? Because it would explain how weird _you’re_ being."

"Greed, being mugged is another thing I would have already mentioned if it had happened, trust me. I just had to deal with a lot of _interesting_ people today. First there was the professor, then there was the Jesus guy—“

"I'm gonna stop you right there. The _what_?"

“Oh, right, you wouldn’t know. It’s just some religious guy who hangs around the fountain and yells and tries to get people to convert. Everyone just calls him the Jesus guy, but trust me when I say _you_ of all people probably aren't interested in details," Ling laughed.

"I'm really, really not, but gossip is gossip. Work with me here, kid, I'm bored," he joked.

"If you're looking for something to do you can help me with my homework? Or _do_ my homework?"

"I'm not _that_ bored. Come on, I'm your roommate, not your babysitter. Besides, it's a Friday night! The hell are you staying inside doing homework for? Why don't you have plans?”

"Haven't you been listening? I did have plans, but Fu broke his finger and there isn't a lot I can do!" he said. It came out much snappier than he intended and Greed rolled his eyes while Ling bit his tongue. He looked away and stood up to put the pretzels away before he could finish the whole bag.

”Alright, I get it, you're upset and understandably so,” Greed said.

"Yeah."

"Today's really not your day, huh?"

"It's not."

"Still, I don't know why you're _this_ upset.” Ling waited for a punchline, but Greed wasn't joking for once. Of course he wasn’t.

"Forget it. I'm gonna go sit in my room," Ling muttered.

“Wait, what'd I say?"

“You didn’t say anything Greed, I’m just tired,” Ling said loudly. In the two seconds’ time it took him to get into his room and reach for the door, Greed had already zipped around to follow him.

"Dude, you can't be in here, that's like the _first_ —“

"The door was still open and I haven't walked in on anything, which I’m pretty sure is all that matters,” he objected.

“What do you want?”

”I’m just saying, if you wanna mope and be alone then that's fine and I'll leave you to it, but I just wanna know why you're moping like this. Is this still about your girl? Because it’s not like she ditched you or anything, I'm sure she still wants to see you even if her gramps is a little injury prone."

"Jesus, Greed, what did I _just_ tell you? Lan Fan is not 'my girl,' or anyone else's for that matter! Now will you get out of my room?" Ling snapped.

"Alright, alright, I'm going! But jeez! You two may not be a thing, but can you really blame me for going there with how cut up you're acting over not seeing her _one_ time?” he asked. Ling gritted his teeth to stop a groan.

"I can, and I will. I'm sick of people assuming we're dating, and I didn't need that from you too," he complained. Greed didn’t seem like he was actually going to leave any time soon, so Ling flopped down on his futon rather than bother trying anymore.

"Okay, I get your point. What then, just a friend?" Greed asked.

" _Yes_ , actually. Why do you care so much?" Ling rubbed his eyes in frustration, and when he opened them again Greed looked almost offended.

"What, am I not allowed to take an interest in your friends like a good friendly roommate would do? You wound me with your lack of trust kid, you really do," he said, voice dripping with false friendliness.

"Sorry 'bout that," Ling responded, equally sarcastic.

"Sure you are. Besides, good roommates or not did I not just say I was bored?"

"What are you, five? That’s not my problem to fix, go entertain _yourself_ like a normal hu- person," Ling corrected himself, but not fast enough for it to go unnoticed as Greed snickered at the mistake.

"You'll get those words out of your vocabulary so soon it'll scare you, don't worry about it,” he assured him. “And come on, I did that for years with the other tenants! I deserve some attention at this point.”

“ _Years_? what was _that_ like?” Ling asked. Once again, he was left to worry about what the hell Greed’s situation was.

"About as boring as you'd think it was. I basically just slept between the walls. Like for months at a time. Though the last guy before you was a fan of both country music and women with high-pitched voices, so sleep wasn't always possible."

“Oh, no."

“Oh, _yes_. The guy had a new girlfriend every month like clockwork and when they weren't banging loud enough to scar the whole damn building for life they were usually fighting. One time it seemed to be both at once and that's _probably_ when I decided to blow his fuses out so he'd leave faster," Greed said proudly.

"Jesus Christ, you're a dick."

“What can I say? Comes with the demon territory. I _would've_ taken the nice route if it could've worked, but what was I supposed to do? I couldn't fucking _talk_ to him. Really, we should both be glad Lin Fan isn't like that. Neither of us want to have that conversation."

"Absolutely not. And it's _Lan_ Fan," Ling corrected.

"I don't care. I'm never gonna meet her," Greed said flatly.

"Well, don't get _too_ confident there, buddy. Like I said, she's probably just as psychic as I am," Ling laughed. Greed was not laughing.

"Me-di-um," he corrected, unsmiling. "And she'd _better_ not find out. I'm sure you want this to remain a secret just as much as I do _right_?"

"Right?" Ling said, answering far too quickly in his unease. Sure, he was worrying about Lan Fan finding out, probably far too much, but he knew that already! Even today his excitement to see her had been shot through with panic that he and Greed had missed something when Ling had told him to hide and that she'd figure something out as soon as she walked in the door. Worrying so much was why he’d made the joke in the first place.

Greed though, what did he care about her feelings?

"You know, I'm not saying we should tell her, because that's still stupid and unfair to her, but you sound a little too… tense about the whole thing. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, if we told her, she’d just freak out like I did, but you’d carry on with just another person knowing, so I have a bigger stake in this than you do if she’s getting the shit end of the bargain.You don't even know her, you just said you don't care, so is there another reason you’re worried about this? Like, besides the obvious?”

"I like my privacy," Greed said flatly.

“That’s the obvious. Does this have something to do with the blood behind the fridge?”

Every particle in Greed's smoke-cloud froze up at the question and Ling slouched into his hoodie. Shouldn’t have asked, shouldn’t have asked.

"Yes, now that you mention it," he said, almost sounding like he was saying it through clenched teeth he didn't have.

"Greed, why do you have a ward against other spirits?" Ling asked delicately.

"Because I like my privacy," Greed repeated firmly. “You’re too damn smart for your own good, kid. Haven’t I already made pretty clear that I'm not looking to have a conversation about this?”

"Sure, but I'm starting to think that's a little unfair, don't you? If you're going to go interrogating me about the love life I don't have, I think I'm entitled to some questions about the house that I _live_ in, aren't I?"

"Sure, when it's any of your business. I get that you're curious, but even _if_  I find myself in the mood to give you the whole tragic backstory spiel, it's a story for another time either way, got it?"

Ling opened his mouth with every intention of arguing, but all he said was, "you're the worst."

“Get used to it, I’m not apologizing.”

“Of course not. Why wouldn’t you?” Ling said sarcastically. He threw his arms up in the air and flopped back to lying down, though the drama of the movement was ruined when his hair got in his mouth. At least it put Greed in a better mood.

“ _What_ a display. You know, you’re kind of a mess, kid,” he laughed.

“ _Today_ was a mess,” Ling said once he’d spit out the last of his ponytail. “You’re telling me, that conversation was a disaster too, while we’re here. Although, if you _do_ run into someone you think isn’t human at school, let me know, will ya?” he asked.

“Sure? Gosh, Greed, are you _worried_ about me?” Ling teased.

“Ha- _ha_. You’ll thank me if it comes up, not all monsters are as friendly as I am.”

“That doesn’t answer the question,” Ling grinned, though the smile was forced now. He still didn't didn't want to think about any monsters except Greed. It was too much to get used to. 

“Well, with the way you’re acting you’re sure not giving me a reason to want to worry about you, you little shit,” he said. “Come on, I’m still bored. If you’re done moping and you’re still not going out like a normal person, we should watch another horror movie or something, one that _wasn’t_ made in the seventies.”

Ling made several more attempts to wrench the conversation back to what was important after that, but Greed wasn’t having it. Hell, he wasn’t even listening, mostly because he didn’t need to pause for breath when he started talking, and _kept_ talking throughout the night. Even when Ling put a movie on to shut him up he made the mistake of picking a ghost movie that Greed could give commentary on.

His motor-mouth did serve a purpose though. Ling doubted that this was Greed’s intention —he wasn’t that nice, not on purpose—, but with the sole exception of Lan Fan’s absence, Greed somehow managed to distract Ling from everything that had been running through his mind because of the day’s events. It wasn’t as if he was saying anything particularly worth listening to, but the sheer fact that he refused to stop was enough to drag Ling out of the bizarre snit he hadn’t even realized he was in. Greed wasn’t Lan Fan and his presence would never be a substitute for hers, but what was Ling supposed to do? There was nothing to _be_ done, so he did nothing, all night until even Greed shut up and Ling was left to think about the day again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, this chapter was weird, yes Army Jacket is important and not just a filler, no I'm not saying who he is, and no, he's not Jean Havoc, which is a mistake I feel could be easy enough to make with the blond hair and the mention of army-wear.


	4. The Army Jacket and the Priest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT'S UP MOTHERFUCKERS THIS TOOK WAY TOO GODDAMN LONG TO WRITE AND I AM BOTH DEEPLY SORRY AND INCREDIBLY IRRITATED BY THAT, SO ENJOY THIS LONG-ASS MESS OF LANGUAGE AND PRETEND IT HASN'T BEEN ACTUAL MONTHS.

The next month slid by with alarming speed; Ling could’ve sworn that only a week had gone by, but September had come and gone and the revelation was like having a rug pulled out from under him.

A whole month without Lan Fan and with Greed in his life, good God. The world really had turned upside down, but who was he to complain? Sure, his social life had taken a turn for the stranger considering that, again, Greed was in his life more than any of his normal friends these days, but with school piling up, who had time for a healthy social life anyway?

And it wasn’t like he’d become a _hermit._ Even though the professors were determined to keep him locked in the library, the mixed martial arts club had started back up again, which made it much easier to a) keep himself from going stir-crazy, and b) pretend he had a large group of friends.

Things were really going quite swimmingly when he thought about it, or _would_ be if he could just _find his goddamn keys_.

“I swear I left them right here,” he muttered. Greed glanced at the empty chair and rolled his eyes.

“If you did, I’m even more impressed that you lost them again,” he snarked. “What time did you say you’d be back again?”

“ _Five_ , Greed! Which is about how many times I’ve told you that, are you even listening to me?” Ling asked. He grabbed his backpack and almost stuffed his entire head in to look; no keys.

“Yeah, yeah, keys, five, I’m listening. Check under your bed, who knows what you’ve got under there.”

Ling groaned at the dig, but it hit home. When he knelt down, the dust he’d let build up was enough to make him sneeze, so he almost missed it when Greed kept running his mouth.

“Okay, but is that five at the earliest or five at the latest?” Ling sighed, sneezed again again, and stood up to glare at him with keys in hand.

“You’re the most paranoid demon I’ve ever met, you know that, right?” he asked. Greed scoffed at the sarcasm and at Ling’s grimacing attempt to smile. It _could’ve_ been a real smile if Greed would just _shut up_ for one second, but no, he just _had_ to keep reminding Ling of what a risk they were taking when they’d already made up their minds. The single month since his last attempt to see Lan Fan had been plenty of time to think up ways that the visit could go wrong, so what was the point in worrying now at the last minute?

“I’m the _only_ demon you’ve ever met, kid. Just answer the question. I don’t buy that casual act for a minute.”

Ling let the smile drop and replaced it with a glower.

“I don’t know? Just five- _ish_. We’re on bicycles, Greed, we’re going nowhere fast.” He almost wished things _were_ moving faster; he was going to be late if they kept dragging their feet like this.

“The bike’s why I’m asking. I don’t even know why you’re riding that thing at this time of year anyway, why can’t you just take the bus or something like a normal person?”

“I hate the bus. You _know_ I hate the bus, I complain to you about it.”

“I’m just saying, if the wheels on that thing finally fall off and you have to call the old man to bail you out, his car is going to be going a lot faster,” Greed said. Ling almost smacked him out of the air, and held back only because it wouldn’t work.

“Alright, that’s enough out of you. Don’t pretend like you’re worried about me if all you’re gonna do is use it as an excuse insult my vehicle,” Ling said. He jammed his keys in his pocket and his helmet down on his head, squashing his ponytail. Greed watched the whole affair with narrow eyes, halfway between concern and disdain.

“Kid, I’ve _seen_ your bike,” he sneered.

“Yeah? And?”

“And it’s not a vehicle, it’s an embarrassment, and you should be ashamed to let a lady see it, on a date no less. Disgraceful.”

“Jesus Christ, you sound like my dad. I know you’re old, but you don’t have be all old-fashioned like that,” Ling complained. “Besides, Lan Fan’s bike is way worse.”

The bike was the only part of that conversation worth arguing over. Ling had corrected Greed enough times when he said any variation of “date” that Greed had turned it into an excuse to make bad jokes. Whether he was joking _now_ was up for debate. It wasn’t great as hobbies went, but Greed needed _something_ to do, and Ling’s obsession with getting out to see her wasn’t exactly proving him wrong. 

“Alright, alright, I see your point. At _least_ admit the helmet’s awful. You look like you’re ten years old with that thing! What is it with you and yellow?”

“Yellow is amazing and I refuse to believe you know anything about fashion. Besides, it's too warm out for my hoodie! I'm doing _better_ than usual."

It was obnoxiously hot for October, and Ling was loving every minute of it. All the more reason not to get on some stuffy bus.

“Okay, considering the keys thing, am I forgetting anything?” Ling asked.

“How should I know? It’s not my job to keep track of your mess,” Greed scoffed.

“Great. Thanks. See you later.”

Ling turned to leave and then—

“At _five_?”

He sighed with his hand on the door. “

You know, you _are_ allowed to say you’re nervous about her. You wouldn’t be the only one,” he said. Greed scoffed again and Ling bit back a laugh at the overacting.

“I do know, and I’m not nervous,” he huffed. “You said she’d never notice if we did this right, so I’m making sure we do this right. End of story.”

 _Now_ Ling laughed. Some scary self-confident demon.

“Alright, I hear ya. Make sure you’re hidden by four-thirty then, if you’re so scared. I gotta get going,” Ling said, and ran out the door before they could drag their conversation on any longer. He was going to see her again, and with the door closed on Greed, nothing was in his way.

At the bottom of the stairs he turned a nervous shake into a skip and leapt down the last three steps. Izumi, rounding the corner, saw the stunt and clapped when he wobbled in the landing.

“Bravo.”

“Whoops! Hiya, Izumi,” he said breathlessly.

“Hey, kiddo. Heading out?”

“Yep! Going to pick my friend up, we’re biking out to that corn maze they set up on the edge of town by that old Catholic church!”

She frowned and raised an eyebrow. Uh-oh.

“You’re just going now? I thought you had a friend over last night.”

Uh-oh.

“No?”

“So that wasn’t you shouting last night?”

Ling could’ve kicked himself into space, though he stuck to a bland smile.

"Maybe, then. Yeah. Skype argument,” he mumbled. Oh, he’d gone and done it now. Just _one_ little argument with Greed and the questions were already coming.

“Oh, I know! Did you have a bad connection? Sig and I have been meaning to get the building checked out, I swear we’re in some kind of deadzone,” she ranted. She'd taken the bait, thank God.

“Yeah, that was it. Excuse me, I gotta go,” Ling muttered. He half-heard her “okay? See you then!” and pushed out the door without looking back. That was too close, and all they’d been doing was bickering over the roommate agreement again. What if they got in a real fight? Izumi didn’t have to be a medium to think something was wrong if Ling was screaming at nothing.

He shook his head and ran for the bike shed. This wasn’t the time to worry about it.

* * *

 

At precisely one-thirty in the afternoon, Ling rang the doorbell. A millisecond later, Lan Fan snapped the door open.

“You’re early!” she yelped.

“Yeah, sorry. I thought I’d be late, so I— hey!” Before he could finish, she wrapped him in a rib cracking hug that almost lifted him off his feet. It would’ve been the greatest moment of his life if his hair hadn’t gotten caught in the wrist of her prosthetic arm.

“Ow— Lan Fan, Lan Fan, _Lan Fan_!” He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and she seemed to be on the verge of both.

“I’m sorry! Hold— hold _still_.” She torqued her arm left, which dug medical plastic right into Ling's neck but let most of his hair fall out. A few hairs still ripped out when she finally jerked back, and with her thumb and one finger she plucked one out and flicked it away with a crooked, sheepish smile.

“Could’ve been worse, I guess?” Ling tried. The back of his head was still twingeing. She giggled through her nose and ripped the last of the hair out of the joint.

“Let’s try this again.” She put her arms out in a circle around Ling’s waist, mimicking a hug but not touching him until they were both snickering too hard to stand still.

“Perfect. Absolutely perfect,” he laughed. “You ready?”

She pulled away and scoffed out a humourless laugh.

“God, yes. Grandfather’s been prowling around the house in a bad mood all day, you have no idea how good it’s going to be to get outside.”

“Fu in a bad mood? Why?” She rolled her eyes and started towards her shed.

“Why do you think? Doctor said he’d have to keep the hand taped up a while longer. Turns out he’s not great at that whole ‘rest and recovery’ thing,” she quipped.

“Ah. Sounds like him.”

She rolled her eyes again and dug a key out of her pocket.

“Come on, let’s get going before he gets home and makes you stay for lunch or something.”

“I could go for another lunch, actually. I hope they’ve got a snack booth at the corn maze."

“Of _course_ you’re hungry,” she snorted. “Don’t you worry, Grandfather made me take sandwiches. _And_ I brought cookies, so you can have one if you’re nice.”

“I love you, Lan Fan.”

“I know, Ling, I know.”

* * *

 

The disaster struck after only half an hour, which had to be a new record. They were two minutes away from the corn maze, so the whole hassle might’ve been avoided if the traffic had been slower, or maybe if Lan Fan weren’t so much of a speed demon. She left Ling sweating in her dust cloud miles behind her, and the driver never even saw her.

Now, _Ling_ , he saw, but only after he’d come tearing out of the church’s parking into Ling’s path.

 _Screech-click-crash_ -over.

One second there, one second

— _screech_ —

the driver tried to swerve, avoid, tighten his right turn, and almost made it but

— _click—_

Ling cranked left and the car came within an inch of

 _—the wheel? brushing the_ tire? _—_

Ling’s bike and it was too close, too close. Ling skidded, skidded, toppled, _crash_!

And it was over. Ling was on the ground.

The car had ripped onto the grass by the side of the road.

 _What_?

He heard his helmet slam into the ground before he felt it, but the same momentum that had sent him sprawling rebounded into a rollover. Ling snapped back up to sitting and then his neck and his shoulder and a million scrapes started crying out in protest against how fast he’d gotten up.

“ _Guhhhh_ ,” he groaned. On top of everything else, sitting up put him at the perfect angle for everyone to start screaming in his ear.

“Ling! Are you—“

“You there! What—"

“— _Ling_ —”

“Hey! Hold on!”

Two (three?) voices, all tumbling over each other and rocketing into the sore spots of his head.

“‘Mm fine. _Fine_ ,” he mumbled. He shifted to get to his feet and Lan Fan lunged at him to pull him up in one swift movement that almost hurt more than the fall.

“Jesus—! Lan Fan, I’m fine! Let go!” he snapped. She jerked back with eyes wide, but Ling didn’t have time to apologize before his vision began to clear and his words died in his mouth at the sight of the blond man hovering over him. The driver’s height meant he looked down on Ling, but he didn’t need it to make Ling feel like somewhere, somehow, he’d disappointed someone. His grimace was more than enough, though the exhaustion in his eyes furrowed his brow into an angrier frown and it didn’t help.

The lack of any visible sympathy or apology jarred against the shabby black suit and clerical collar, and then more so when Ling’s eyes drifted to the car and saw a junk pile that shouldn't have been able to go as fast as it had.

Most concerning of all was the blond _boy_ , skulking by the trunk.

“Let’s get out of the road,” the driver said dully, another shock to the system. Ling took the advice on autopilot and limped past him in a haze without picking up his bike.

“What the hell?” he croaked. The boy by the car, the boy in the knockoff army jacket, made a strangled noise that might have been outrage or panic. Ling was nauseous with both.

The driver glanced back and forth between the boys and the bike and shuffled out of the road.

“Henry? You know him?” Army Jacket —Henry— made another strangled croak and managed two words.

“Shifty kid.”

“ _Huh_?” The words meant absolutely squat to Ling for a full ten seconds; then, a fuzz of a memory straggled to the front of Ling’s mind and the confusion got worse. Of all the things to remember from that train wreck of a day, why were the insults in the coffeeshop what stuck out?

Either way, it meant something to the two of them.

“Is he now? Huh,” the driver mused. He stared Ling up and down, eyes still like an X-ray, and stuck his hand out to shake like he’d closed a business deal with Ling instead of nearly running him over.

“My apologies, for everything. I must’ve given you a heck of a shock,” he said. So _now_ he’d decided to be nice! Ling was back to speechlessness, which made Lan Fan’s furious interruption a godsend.

“Are you kidding me! 'A heck of a shock?' You could’ve killed him! It’s lucky all he got was a couple scrapes! What are you doing ripping around corners like that?” she demanded. Henry whipped his head around and oh, God, there was that look again. This could get ugly, but Lan Fan wasn’t finished yet.

“I acknowledge that, I promise. And I am willing to do whatever you deem necessary to compensate for the injuries he did receive, but don’t you think we should be grateful it’s not worse?”

“Well, sure, but that’s not the point!” she argued.

“Lan Fan, it’s okay. I’m fine,” Ling tried. Three pairs of eyes turned on him. Why was he, the loser in this, playing peacemaker?

“Anyway,” Henry said loudly, “what about the bike? If that got damaged, I’m sure not paying for it.”

“Aw, shit.” The driver grimaced at the cuss and Lan Fan half-heartedly called, “don’t just run into the road like that!” after him but Ling ignored both. It really would’ve been the icing on the cake if another car did come around just when Ling happened to be in the road again, but the road was dead, dead, dead, just like the backroads by a creepy church _should_ be.

Why had this happened?

He righted the bicycle and walked it back to the other side of the road. The wheels moved well enough, but something rattled and squeaked so loudly that Henry covered his ears.

“Aw, _shit_ ,” he muttered. “Oh. Sorry. It’s not that bad, it’s just— yeah,” he mumbled.

“I’m used to it. Teenagers,” the driver said. He jerked his head Henry’s way and Henry shrank further into his enormous jacket. Then, as if reminded by it, “how do you know Henry anyway?”

“Ran into him at school. Weird day. I don’t _know_ him,” Ling stressed. “What about you?”

“Nephew. Sorry, we haven’t been properly introduced. Father Joshua Kent, I’m in charge at the church,” he said. He stuck his hand out again and Ling gingerly took it with his own dirty, bloodied hand.

“Ling… Yao,” he stumbled. The social rituals of inscrutable middle-aged white men who’d nearly killed him were not his strong suit, and neither were awkward handshakes for that matter.

“Pleasure. So is the bicycle broken, or not?” Kent asked, and finally let go.

“I think the fall knocked something loose, but it’s nothing I couldn’t have done myself. The bike is kind of… an embarrassment,” Ling said. He cringed at using Greed’s word, but if it would end the conversation faster, so be it. Kent nodded, but said nothing. The silence stretched and neither let go until Lan Fan cut in with, “so that’s it? We’re friends now, and we’ll just forget the bike?”

“I was thinking the same thing! Enough with the formalities and just fix this!” Henry shouted. Kent glared at him for shouting, but this time Henry did not flinch.

“What, you got somewhere to be?” Ling asked. Henry snapped his head around and Ling bit his tongue.

“And what if we did? You’re not hurt, are ya? Said so yourself, you’re fine! I’ve got no damn clue what you’re doing out here on that piece of junk anyway, you’re begging for trouble like that!”

“Hey, it’s a public road! What the hell is your problem anyway, why do you get in my face like this _every_ time I see you?” Ling complained. Henry scoffed through his teeth and stormed over to start posturing again. He sidestepped around Lan Fan and she jittered like she might stand between them without being able to make up her mind. The way clear, Henry was in front of Ling in one step, still bigger, still furious, still with wild—

eyes?

hold on.

 _Blue_?

“What's wrong with your eyes?” Ling blurted. Henry jerked back, looking—

Confused? Angry?

Scared?

“Henry! That’s enough!” Kent barked. Everyone jumped, Henry most of all.

“But—“

“ _Enough_. We are in the wrong here, so _behave_ for once,” he growled. Henry sputtered himself into silence and turned his fury back on Ling.

“Do you guys need a ride? Or money? Or something?” he grumbled.

“It’s _fine_. Really. I just wanna leave,” Ling insisted.

“Are you sure? Is that bike going to be safe to ride home?” Kent asked.

“Uhh…” Ling and Lan Fan exchanged glances. She was still glowering, ready for a fight, but at the sight of Ling’s exhaustion, her shoulders sagged.

“If it can hold together for five minutes, we passed a bus stop,” she said.

“That's good enough," Ling said. He looked back to Henry and Father Kent, and the preacher nodded.

“If you say so. You can come into the church if you want to clean yourself up first, get some bandages, but—“

“I’m good. I just wanna go,” Ling repeated.

“I don’t blame you. Here, at least permit me to give you some bus fare,” Kent muttered. He patted down his shabby suit for a wallet.

“You don’t have to." Kent didn’t acknowledge him, but pulled out a rumpled twenty and two business cards.

“I'm not familiar with the bus system here, but I believe that that should cover it. If something really _is_ wrong with your bike, or you’re injured more than you look, you can contact me there."

Ling took the cards with two fingers and stuffed the bill in his pocket.

“You don’t want _my_ phone number too, do you?” he mumbled.

Kent finally smiled, though it didn’t suit his stiff features.

“You’ve been through enough, I won’t trouble you for more."

“Thanks?”

“You’re welcome. Now, if you two are sure—“

“We’re _sure_ ,” Ling blurted. Henry, who had gone back to skulking, groaned at the sound of yet another interruption.

“If you are sure you’re safe to go home,” Kent continued, “then we’ll be on our way. As Henry so eloquently told you, we do have somewhere to be.”

“Right.” Williams nodded.

“We’ll be leaving then.”

And with that he strode back to the car like nothing had happened. Henry, Lan Fan, and Ling all stood stock-still in shock, until Kent called back for Henry and broke them all out. Lan Fan was the first to recover her voice.

“And be more careful, huh! Why don’t you get your licence checked or something!” she shouted. Henry grumbled what had to be curse words at her, but shuffled into the car. Kent gave no indication that he had heard.

“Lan Fan, please. Let’s just go,” Ling groaned.

“Why aren’t you angry?”

“I don’t really care? I feel kinda weird.”

“Oh God. Let me see your eyes, are you concussed?” “What? No, I’m fine!” he snapped. She jerked away again and this time he sighed. The junk pile sputtered to life and began on its original route again, almost as fast as before.

“Let’s go home. Forget the corn maze, I just want to clean myself up.”

* * *

 

Ling did not return home at five. He didn’t even drag it out until four-thirty, and this knowledge slowed him down on the stairs. Lan Fan mistook it for soreness and hurried him up so they could get to the antiseptic faster.  

What was he supposed to do? It wasn’t his fault he’d nearly been killed by a lunatic priest and his—

 _blue-_ eyed nephew.

Ling shook his head. He had to have imagined it. Eyes didn’t change colour on their own.

_Oh, really? You’re dismissing something as impossible so easily?_

The nagging voice of worry in the back of his head had begun to sound like Greed, and was twice as unhelpful. The thought of _how_  Henry’s eyes had gone from brown to blue (they didn’t! Obviously they didn’t!) when he wasn't the sort for contacts was not a cheerful one, and it would not go away.

“Door’s a bit sticky,” he muttered. It wasn’t, had never been; it was one of the only things in the building that wasn’t a piece of junk, but saying so gave Ling an excuse to rattle his keys and kick the door open with a _bang!_

“Home sweet home.” Ling dumped his bag and his helmet with another bang! and scanned the room. No wayward demons in sight, though the lights were flickering. Whether that was his fault or just the building again, who knew?

Lan Fan whistled appreciatively.

“Love what you’ve done with the place,” she said.

“When you keep a straight face like that, I can’t tell whether you’re being sarcastic,” he chuckled. She jerked a thumb at the dishes piled up in the sink and said, “ _no_ sarcasm, at all.”

“Ah. I was gonna clean up, I swear! I told you I thought I was going to be late.” His voice petered out as his face went red and it was her turn to laugh.

“Not your day, huh?”

“Hasn’t really been my month, to be honest,” he muttered. She winced, and her eyes lingered on his right shoulder, the worst of the scrapes.

“Sorry about your shirt, by the way.”

“What, this thing? I’ve been meaning to get a new one anyway, don’t worry about it. I don’t care,” he said quickly. To drive the point home he pulled the flannel off, but it snagged on his drying scabs and he cried out before he could stop himself. She flinched, reached a hand to help, stopped.

“Are you…?”

“I’m fine. Just fine,” he winced. He dropped the flannel and stood stooped in his tank top. With the longer shirt off, she could see the bruises already starting to form up his right side and the dried blood on his elbow and his shoulder.

“You should clean yourself up,” she said quietly.

“Yeah.”

“Go do that.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll try and straighten up a little in here.”

“I don’t want to make you—“

“I want to,” she insisted. “It's a mess. _You're_ a mess. Go. Clean. Up.” Before he could move, she picked up the flannel and pushed him towards the bathroom in one movement. Her fingers came within an inch of where he’d fallen. He shuffled into the bathroom, and the sound of running water in the kitchen filtered through the door even after he closed it. 

The sight of his own reflection made him jump when he turned around. His hair was dusty and tangled, and a colourful parade of scrapes and bruises covered his right side, but other than the crying in his shoulder, it looked worse than it felt, until he tried to rinse it out. The basin was too low, the angle awkward; the alternative was a shower but that would take too damn long.

He rubbed some dirt out of the scrape and his vision went fuzzy. After all those years of karate injuries and even other bike falls, why were scrapes still the worst thing ever?

“Hey!”

Scratch that. The worst thing ever was behind him.

Ling jumped as a reflex and knocked his elbow into the tap. Greed tutted in disapproval.

“It’s just me, you idiot.”

“Yeah, I know! What are you doing here!” Ling hissed.

“I’m asking _you_ that, asshole! Why are you here so early?”

“Quiet down, she’s in the other room!”

“And running that dumbass industrial sink at full blast, she can’t hear shit. Answer the question.”

“No! Get out!” Ling swiped at Greed, but doubled over in pain when his scrapes hit his smoke and objected to that bizarre numbness jolting up his arm. Greed muttered a curse at Ling's idiocy and leaned over him to inspect the damage.

“And then there’s this! Look at you, what did you _do_ while I was gone?”

Ling looked up and Greed was barely an inch from his nose, staring him down without a frown.

“What, are you actually worried about me?”  

“Fuck off, I want answers,” Greed snapped. Ling laughed weakly and put his head in his hands.

“Get out of here before I… exorcise you or something, I don’t know. I swear on my life I’ll tell you everything _after_ she’s gone,” he promised. Greed held his stare.

“Something must’ve really gone wrong, huh? This is a hell of a stunt you’re pulling coming early like this, she almost caught me. Way too close.”

“ _Really_ wrong. Yo have no idea. But you’re cutting it a lot closer being in here, so _go_ ,” Ling insisted. Greed didn’t move at first, barely seemed to listen, but floated up to the vent and disappeared into the shadows.

The rest of the disaster relief went smoothly, and Ling walked out with his shirt off; the time it took to walk from the bathroom to the bedroom to get a new one should not have been enough for Lan Fan to intercept him but her sixth sense for Ling getting into trouble must’ve been working overtime.

“Something happen?” she called.

“Other than my arm being on fire? No." On second thought, forget the shirt. He changed course and retrieved his hoodie from the back of the chair.

“You sure look like someone’s rubbed you the wrong way. Like, literally. Your hair’s all staticky,” she joked. Ling couldn’t argue.

“They’re always like that.” She clicked her tongue and left the dishes with the tap still running. She didn’t have to reach far to each his head anymore now that they’d stopped growing and she’d caught up, but her movements were stiff. Had she gotten sore from training again? On the ride? Either way, it was his idea. Hadn't even thought of if she'd be up for it, and she’d still gone ahead.

“I’m alright.” He stepped away and his sweaty hands were perfect to flat his hair and scare her off. She froze with her hand still hovering, dripping, unsure how to continue.

She stuffed it in her pocket.

“Where’d you plan for us to sleep in the place anyway?”

The subject change was so abrupt that Ling’s words were scrambled in his haste to respond.

“Cushion. Couch. Right.” Lan Fan’s face was as blank as a blue screen and Ling burst out giggling. The tension from the idiocy with his hair fizzled out like a bad drink going flat. “Glad you’re in a better mood?” she tried. Ling only laughed harder until he was on the floor hiccuping. Confusion turned into amusement and irritation at the same time and she hauled him up.

“Alright, let’s try this again? Where am I sleeping, Ling?” she enunciated. Ling bit his tongue and calmed down to just a broad grin.

“Thought we’d drag my mattress out here and take the cushions off the couch. Not fancy, but I don’t have an air mattress and you’d probably hurt your neck if you tried to sleep curled up on my couch,” he said. “I mean I love you to death but I’m not sleeping on the floor for you.”

“So your thoughts went straight to ‘blanket fort?’ You _do_ know how to treat a girl right,” she joked.

“It’s not really a—, yeah. Yeah it is. Oh my God.” He lapsed back into giggles and Lan Fan patted his shoulder until he wore himself out.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“You’re too nice to me. It’s been a very, very, very long day,” he admitted. The corners of her mouth twitched and she pulled him into a stiff hug. His chin sat at an awkward angle into her shoulder, but Ling didn’t move until she let go.

“I’ve had a long day too. Let’s get that mattress out here before you collapse on me completely.”

Ling pretended to faint onto her as a joke, but she shoved him off in a one-handed motion that was a bit too much like a punch for Ling’s sore sack of a body. He really did collapse then, in a heap of pained giggles.

* * *

 

Between Lan Fan’s arm (not ideal for heavy, awkward-shaped lifting) and Ling’s various injuries (the soreness in his shoulder only increased through the evening), getting the mattress out of his room was a chore that almost left them too worn out to finish the job. As such, “construction” of the blanket fort devolved into little more than a vicious pillow fight that lasted until Ling took a well-aimed blow to the injured shoulder.

Despite the friendly attempts at homicide by cushion, they eventually built a fort fit for a prince, an edifice of wonky cushions with a sheet thrown over it for good measure. It would’ve been nice to say that they had had the classic sleepover experience after that, all junk food and giggles and staying up all night, but Ling collapsed in their train wreck bed by six and never wanted to move again. While Lan Fan eventually coaxed him out with Fu’s sandwiches, now crumbling and squished from a day spent forgotten in her bag, she joined him in exhaustion before the sun was down.

“Well this has been a fun day,” Ling muttered. They had flicked through the comedy section of Netflix and one or both of them had come close to nodding off with every episode. Now the night had settled in and Ling couldn’t remember why they hadn’t done the smart thing and just gone to sleep.

Lan Fan didn’t answer, but kept staring into space. She rocked back and forth ever so slightly and could’ve been on another planet without noticing the difference.

“Aw, come on, are you asleep already?” Ling joked. She jolted and shook her head.

“Sorry. Just thinking.”

“What, you too? Stop that, you’ll get a headache.” Again, no response.

“Hey, are you okay?” She nodded, once, twice.

“Lan Fan,  you're scaring-”

“Ling, what’s going on with you?” she burst out.

“ _Huh_?”

She stared him down until he gulped and muttered, “just… stress, I guess.”

“Don’t give me that, you’ve been weird all day, even before the car! I know that _was_ weird, you’ve only gotten jumpier since, but you’re scaring me!” she shouted. As she looked up the battery on his laptop died and the only light left was a scrap of moonlight and the smoke detector filtering through the sheet above their heads. Lan Fan became an outline and a shining pair of beautiful, miserable black eyes.

Ling’s head spun and he looked away from her. Her frown was too much, her worry was too—

“Ling.”

“The eyes,” Ling blurted. He squeaked in panic at having spoken and choked on nothing and coughed and coughed until she put a hand on his shoulder and froze him in place. Nothing existed besides the two shaking, scared kids under the blanket fort, and Ling barely even felt like he was there either way.

“Start over,” Lan Fan whispered.

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can— hey. Look at me.” The hand on his shoulder moved up to hold his cheek and her thumb was left damp when it brushed the bottom of his eye.

“What’s wrong?”

He could do it; he could throw the secrecy out the window and let the words come out and out and out because once he started talking he wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t just be Henry anymore, if he spoke it would be about Henry and Father Kent and so many thing about Greed. It would be today and it would be the entire month gone by in a blur and every second since he had moved in. It would be every second since he had last seen her and how it had hurt so much, and that was what made the words die on his tongue.

The other reasons were still there; the terror of articulating what he was feeling, Greed’s warning still bouncing in his head, backed by a chorus of “your girl, your girl,” the absurdity of the whole situation, but why would they matter in the face of something like this? She was worth so damn much that his stomach hurt just thinking about it and she was worth more than Ling’s crazy secrets. How could he drag her into the crazy, turn the world upside-down with a casual confession that nightmares were real and he was living with one? In the _midst_ of one, even, since this day had been a nightmare from start to finish and Ling was not spreading the terror he’d felt at the notion that Henry’s eyes were wrong and he might be another 'something else.'

“It’s nothing,” he said hoarsely. “I mean it. Today freaked me out. I could’ve died. That’s all I needed to freak out like this, I swear.” Robotic words, not letting anything extra slip by.

“And the eyes?” God, she was scary. Three words and Ling almost ate his own.

“I thought I saw something. I didn’t see anything. Side effect of freaking out. I thought… I thought his eyes had changed colour or something. Scared the shit out of me, I feel like I’m going crazy,” he said, laughed, cried. Every word true, every word part of a bigger lie. She didn’t speak for so long that the radiator kicked in to fill the silence. It buzzed in his ears like the hesitation between them. Did she know how much he wasn’t saying? Did she know there was something he didn’t want her to know?

It didn’t make a difference; she lay down facing away from Ling so he couldn’t see her face.

“Okay. I was just worried there was something else,” she said. Her voice was soft, but clipped.

“Lan Fan?”

“I think I want to go to sleep now. It’s been a long day.” Her voice shook on the last word and a lump rose up in Ling’s throat.

“Okay. I’m sorry this day was such a disaster.” The urge to say more was there without any idea of what, so he lay down as well with the lump in his throat still choking him. The blanket had sagged above their heads and now it almost seemed it would touch the tip of his nose and fall on his face. Beside him, Lan Fan’s breathing slowed without any awareness of how suffocating the material above their faces had become. Ling rolled onto his side just for the sake of something else to look at; he would’ve preferred to just rip it down, but he didn’t dare move and disturb her again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANGST ANGST ANGST BLEHHHHHHHH

**Author's Note:**

> Original idea/drawings: http://newkingdoms.tumblr.com/post/134404756558/okay-but-dumb-modern-au-where-ling-yao-moves


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